Who doesn't want to talk about first love? I just saw the movie "Moonrise Kingdom" and a flood of memory flowed like such sweetness with only a hint of bitter....but not really, maybe just like a dandelion flower. It's bitter but beautiful. In this movie, these two young 12 year old loves run away together on a wilderness adventure, to marry in a strange ceremony~
I would run away and marry my love. Oh, wait, that's what ____ and I did. We sped west as fast as we could. No rest till we crossed the Mississippi and even then no rest until a frosty campout in the Colorado mountains. Ill prepared for such a chilly night. Oooooh, but we were free! We were true lovers! We were runaways, perhaps to be joined in marriage by a Native Shaman we might come across in the desert. That was our plan. To marry and never return, to continue, put our car on a cargo ship to Hawaii and live there, married, maybe continue up to Alaska. We were lovers, soul travelers, joined at the wrist. Holding hands, walking through the deserts of Utah, singing Pink Floyd, the Beatles, and Tori Amos. Running from Serial Killers. Finding a cache in a cave. Is this their hideout? "Leave it", I said. He wanted to dump out the water. I didn't want to get involved.
"With my love by my side"
Oh, the romance of old things and new things. I didn't even have an email account yet, in this time that I write about. We had a disc man with a cassette tape converter. ____ said I was a Pink Floyd connoisseur. He was in awe of my Pink Floyd-ness. I've never loved a band before or since the way that I loved Pink Floyd.
Oh, first love. First love of a band. First love of a man. First time saying, "Oh my God, I think I really love you"...and....and...and....You totally love me! You love me so much you can't sleep! I can't sleep! Ah! And you bring breakfast treats to me at my job. And my coworker says, "How do you know?" And I say, in all my worldly and universal experience of being in love for a month or two, "You just know, I don't know."
~Fearless~
The Night of the Full Moon Cows
Oh, we survived. We were told by the officials to leave New Mexico on account of the Serial Killers. So we moseyed through the state line road blocks to our favorite campsite many, many hours and miles away in Utah on a clayishly-muddy river bank lined with cotton wood trees.
Playing cards, drinking beers and listening to Sci-Fi late night radio, trying not to be freaked out by the 'serial killer' thing......
.....But I kept hearing strange noises in the night outside of the Jeep. Were inside the vehicle, too scared of the serial killers we supposedly left in the dust, two hundred miles and a state line away, to set up camp.
I felt a presence. ___ said I was paranoid. My skin was crawling. "Something is out there! I can't stand not knowing. If it's the killer, he'll kill us anyway! I can't stand it!"
I summoned up all my courage and rolled down the passenger side back seat window.......only to come face to face, eye to eye, nose to nose, warm breath on my face, with a huge and totally benign cow. Two in the morning cow, staring at me, shifting his body slowly back and forth. "Oh, God", I sighed in half cry/sob/relief breath, "It's just a cow. It's a cow"
And then I heard, and then I looked, and in the light of the big glorious full moon that graced us with it's mysterious and holy glow, I saw an endless sea of cows, some quietly moo-ing. All I could see were cows. All around my Jeep, around all the trees. All looking at me. We got out onto the roof on my car with more beers and just hung out with the moon and one million cows. I could hear them crossing the river. I could hear the coyotes. We were a drunk love island in a sea of cows.
I would run away and marry my love. Oh, wait, that's what ____ and I did. We sped west as fast as we could. No rest till we crossed the Mississippi and even then no rest until a frosty campout in the Colorado mountains. Ill prepared for such a chilly night. Oooooh, but we were free! We were true lovers! We were runaways, perhaps to be joined in marriage by a Native Shaman we might come across in the desert. That was our plan. To marry and never return, to continue, put our car on a cargo ship to Hawaii and live there, married, maybe continue up to Alaska. We were lovers, soul travelers, joined at the wrist. Holding hands, walking through the deserts of Utah, singing Pink Floyd, the Beatles, and Tori Amos. Running from Serial Killers. Finding a cache in a cave. Is this their hideout? "Leave it", I said. He wanted to dump out the water. I didn't want to get involved.
"With my love by my side"
Oh, the romance of old things and new things. I didn't even have an email account yet, in this time that I write about. We had a disc man with a cassette tape converter. ____ said I was a Pink Floyd connoisseur. He was in awe of my Pink Floyd-ness. I've never loved a band before or since the way that I loved Pink Floyd.
Oh, first love. First love of a band. First love of a man. First time saying, "Oh my God, I think I really love you"...and....and...and....You totally love me! You love me so much you can't sleep! I can't sleep! Ah! And you bring breakfast treats to me at my job. And my coworker says, "How do you know?" And I say, in all my worldly and universal experience of being in love for a month or two, "You just know, I don't know."
~Fearless~
The Night of the Full Moon Cows
Oh, we survived. We were told by the officials to leave New Mexico on account of the Serial Killers. So we moseyed through the state line road blocks to our favorite campsite many, many hours and miles away in Utah on a clayishly-muddy river bank lined with cotton wood trees.
Playing cards, drinking beers and listening to Sci-Fi late night radio, trying not to be freaked out by the 'serial killer' thing......
.....But I kept hearing strange noises in the night outside of the Jeep. Were inside the vehicle, too scared of the serial killers we supposedly left in the dust, two hundred miles and a state line away, to set up camp.
I felt a presence. ___ said I was paranoid. My skin was crawling. "Something is out there! I can't stand not knowing. If it's the killer, he'll kill us anyway! I can't stand it!"
I summoned up all my courage and rolled down the passenger side back seat window.......only to come face to face, eye to eye, nose to nose, warm breath on my face, with a huge and totally benign cow. Two in the morning cow, staring at me, shifting his body slowly back and forth. "Oh, God", I sighed in half cry/sob/relief breath, "It's just a cow. It's a cow"
And then I heard, and then I looked, and in the light of the big glorious full moon that graced us with it's mysterious and holy glow, I saw an endless sea of cows, some quietly moo-ing. All I could see were cows. All around my Jeep, around all the trees. All looking at me. We got out onto the roof on my car with more beers and just hung out with the moon and one million cows. I could hear them crossing the river. I could hear the coyotes. We were a drunk love island in a sea of cows.
