Memories of First Love
Dec. 22nd, 2003 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talktoolooseHaving teased you dramatically yesterday about finding my first love on the web, I'll reprint an entry I wrote about him in another blog identity two years ago. Please note: Snake's pseudonym at the time was Attilla, one of my favourite Hungarian names.
2001-04-17 - 8:38 p.m.
Today, I was remembering my first love. We were 18, he was straight (I think) and I thought I was too. Really, he's more of an "in retrospect" first love, and there will be no breathless consummation to this tale. Strangely enough, he was Hungarian, just like Attilla; or at least born to Hungarian parents in Canada.
My teenage dreamboat and I discovered each other in senior year of high school. We had three classes together and somehow figured out that we were a couple of neat guys with dreams that went beyond the conventional. At 16, he had become the youngest person in Ontario's history to receive his pilot's license and, at 18, the youngest to receive his commercial rating. You see, he wanted to be an astronaut. And unlike other little boys who dream of space travel at age 10, he actually took steps to get there. He was on his way to military college the following year to study aeronautical engineering.
Although he had a real butch energy, there was a delicious, gentle twinkle in him. For example, whenever he'd see a baby, he'd squeel "Babeeeee!" in a high-pitched voice and go over to the carriage to coo. He was short and powerful and had a jaw like a movie star. I stared at that jaw a lot.
I don't know how he discovered me. I spent my high school years trying to be as neutral as possible. I hung out with friends at school, but attended no parties and no dances. I dated no one and, in general, did nothing that would allow anyone too near, lest they sniff out the horrible stench of fagdom that I knew (though denied) was hiding in my ripe loins. (Ripe loins? Hello, Harlequin?)
But by spring of that year (1982!), I was seriously in love and he was glad to be my friend. Then the most romantic event of my life happened. It was a perfect day at the end of May, a week or so before final exams. We were walking to Functions and Relations (oh, sweet irony!) when Flyboy said to me, "It's too nice to go to math class, isn't it?" And with that, we left the school, hopped into his beaten up Chevy and drove to Buttonville airport where he rented out a two-person Cessna, and took me up into the clouds.
He praised my poise as the little plane jumped and dipped in the turbulence. He flew me over downtown and the University of Toronto which I would attend in the fall. We were free. Life lay ahead of us and we were men, not high school kids. And I wasn't just a scared closet-boy who didn't deserve to be loved; I was the friend he had chosen to fly with. I didn't know what I had done to deserve such happiness, but happy I was. Nineteen years later, I'm still smiling and choked up and vividly there beside him in the noisy cabin of the Cessna.
And that's all. He went his way, and I went mine. We saw each other for a weekend the following September, again at Commencement in November, and one final afternoon in January. That last time, we went to see the movie 48 Hours, and I came out livid at the testosterone-soaked audience who cheered some real tragic violence in the story. I ranted afterwards, my newly acquired beard unkempt like a revolutionary hero's. And he had no response. They don't question gratuitous violence at military college. I blamed my self-righteous expressions of rage for the fact that we didn't get together again; but really, I think it was just circumstance and the unpredictable currents of life.
I've watched the papers carefully. Marc Garneau was Canada's first astronaut. Julie Payette and others followed, but his name has not appeared. There are a few people on Yahoo People Search who share his name, none in Canada, one in Tampa, Florida. I haven't written yet.
What would my letter say?
"I still dream about you."
2001-04-17 - 8:38 p.m.
Today, I was remembering my first love. We were 18, he was straight (I think) and I thought I was too. Really, he's more of an "in retrospect" first love, and there will be no breathless consummation to this tale. Strangely enough, he was Hungarian, just like Attilla; or at least born to Hungarian parents in Canada.
My teenage dreamboat and I discovered each other in senior year of high school. We had three classes together and somehow figured out that we were a couple of neat guys with dreams that went beyond the conventional. At 16, he had become the youngest person in Ontario's history to receive his pilot's license and, at 18, the youngest to receive his commercial rating. You see, he wanted to be an astronaut. And unlike other little boys who dream of space travel at age 10, he actually took steps to get there. He was on his way to military college the following year to study aeronautical engineering.
Although he had a real butch energy, there was a delicious, gentle twinkle in him. For example, whenever he'd see a baby, he'd squeel "Babeeeee!" in a high-pitched voice and go over to the carriage to coo. He was short and powerful and had a jaw like a movie star. I stared at that jaw a lot.
I don't know how he discovered me. I spent my high school years trying to be as neutral as possible. I hung out with friends at school, but attended no parties and no dances. I dated no one and, in general, did nothing that would allow anyone too near, lest they sniff out the horrible stench of fagdom that I knew (though denied) was hiding in my ripe loins. (Ripe loins? Hello, Harlequin?)
But by spring of that year (1982!), I was seriously in love and he was glad to be my friend. Then the most romantic event of my life happened. It was a perfect day at the end of May, a week or so before final exams. We were walking to Functions and Relations (oh, sweet irony!) when Flyboy said to me, "It's too nice to go to math class, isn't it?" And with that, we left the school, hopped into his beaten up Chevy and drove to Buttonville airport where he rented out a two-person Cessna, and took me up into the clouds.
He praised my poise as the little plane jumped and dipped in the turbulence. He flew me over downtown and the University of Toronto which I would attend in the fall. We were free. Life lay ahead of us and we were men, not high school kids. And I wasn't just a scared closet-boy who didn't deserve to be loved; I was the friend he had chosen to fly with. I didn't know what I had done to deserve such happiness, but happy I was. Nineteen years later, I'm still smiling and choked up and vividly there beside him in the noisy cabin of the Cessna.
And that's all. He went his way, and I went mine. We saw each other for a weekend the following September, again at Commencement in November, and one final afternoon in January. That last time, we went to see the movie 48 Hours, and I came out livid at the testosterone-soaked audience who cheered some real tragic violence in the story. I ranted afterwards, my newly acquired beard unkempt like a revolutionary hero's. And he had no response. They don't question gratuitous violence at military college. I blamed my self-righteous expressions of rage for the fact that we didn't get together again; but really, I think it was just circumstance and the unpredictable currents of life.
I've watched the papers carefully. Marc Garneau was Canada's first astronaut. Julie Payette and others followed, but his name has not appeared. There are a few people on Yahoo People Search who share his name, none in Canada, one in Tampa, Florida. I haven't written yet.
What would my letter say?
"I still dream about you."
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Date: 2003-12-23 10:44 am (UTC)