I have absolutely no sense of direction. I’ve driven Jenny home so many times, but somehow when I get to Pennsylvania, I always turn right, which is the wrong way, unless I’m going straight back to my mom’s, which I never am. So anyway, I realized I was going the wrong way, but I didn’t feel like turning around yet. So I drove a few miles, and stopped in the parking lot of my old church. From the time I was in seventh grade and old enough to go, until less than a year ago, I spent every wednesday night there, with my friend John and my little brother, and sometimes, Carlene. Youth group. But it was my social life.
Every week, whether it was warm or cold or raining or just uncomfortable, John and I would go outside the church and sit on the edge of the parking lot, because there was this very large, very steep hill that, eventually, turned into soccer fields that turned into a playground that turned into yards. The space that was the hill and the ground at the bottom of it was a huge expanse before it became any of those things. We’d sit on the hill and talk. My hair was long past my waist, and the wind would mess it up beyond fixing, but I’d stay outside. In the summer, we’d roll down the hill and climb up and roll down it again and again until we made ourselves sick, laughing and unable to walk. In the summer, we rolled onto thistles. In the winter, we didn’t roll. In the spring, we climbed back up muddy and wet. And in the fall, there were dandelions. There were so many dandelions, you couldn’t even see the grass, over that huge expanse, no grass at all. You’d take one step onto that hill or the field, and thousands of tiny seeds would cloud up around you and blow away to make more dandelions, as if there was room for any more. So we’d roll down the hill and the dandelion seeds would cling to my tangled up hair, and the bill of his hat, and to our eyelashes, and to our clothes, and they’d fill our mouths and noses because we’d been laughing and we couldn’t breathe. Eventually, at some point every year, they spray all the dandelions with whatever the chemical is that kills them. And after that, the hill is bare and even the grass looks ugly. And then it starts snowing, more and more. And in the winter, we’d go skiing and sledding and we’d be covered in snow instead of seeds. And in the summer, we’d sneak off to flora pool and drink iced blended coffee, and four days later we’d be on the hill again. I never could get enough of that place. John was my best friend. I loved him. My mom, though, she didn’t want me to even speak to him, and she had very little faith in him.
I especially miss him, covered in dandelions. We’d roll down the hill facing each other holding hands and laughing when we lost our grip halfway down. Our faces were close together and close to the ground, and like I said, filled with dandelion seeds. All those dandelions, reproducing because of us. You know how people say that dandelions are for making wishes? Blow off all the seeds. We wasted every single one of those wishes. Hundreds at a time, just because of gravity. But what happened when those seeds landed again? There were even more dandelions than before.
He actually just found me again. The bittersweet shock drew the breath from my lungs and the blood from my brain. To the frantic cadence of my heart, my blood surged through my body quickly enough to make me tremble, almost hot enough to make me weep. He's come and gone, and so have I, for almost half my lifetime. Memory's been fickle, fleeting - but only the present exists in our every meeting. In the face of uncertain conviction, I released the tsunami of my mind and the deluge of my heart. It was well received. Former paramours, barely shrouded in the dust of our footsteps, peer warily through this sliver of time, no doubt making judgments or curses. Transcendent I float, willing our environment to evanecse; I hope that I am as pertinent as he makes me feel. My latent affinity is flourishing, evoking in me the desire to become a planet, orbiting its complement in the vastness of the universe.
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