In 2003, in the immediate aftermath of America's 'Shock and Awe' bombing campaign in Baghdad, Kristina and I made our way from Jordan into Baghdad and delivered the only gift we had: we carried my oud and we sang Iraqi love songs on the streets of the burning, smoky city... We wanted to be the Americans who came with love instead of weapons... Actually... we succeeded...
What led us there? I think it all began back in 1952...
I called her 'Birdie'
I don’t think I remember the first kiss. But I remember the kisses. We were surrounded by the singing cicada wilderness of the Missouri countryside. It was 1952. I was eight and Roberta was ten. I called her Birdie. Her family was Armenian. When our lips touched it felt like velvet magic. I wanted more. We were playing hide and seek with our friends, but we would be clever and go hide together where we could decide on the next kiss. Would it be on the cheek or on the lips? The lips were definitely more exciting. The lower dragons in my sexuality had not yet awakened, but our lips were channeling something amazing. Our kisses sent me into a cool and refreshing new world... a world from which I could endlessly drink.
We were in love. She liked to whisper “my future husband!” into my ear and I would murmur: “my future wife!” There was something very exciting about that. And we loved to wrestle. She was two years older than I and it took some work, but I could pin her shoulders to the ground and hold her down.
We explored the leafy trails which led to the Old Mill and the old Quarry. We ran from stone to stone up the creeks. We squirmed into limestone caves and admired the salamanders. We befriended the snakes and turtles. We dug holes in the ground and called them “forts.” We nailed boards up high in the catalpa trees, constructed rope ladders and rested in our tree house homes.
Sometimes as the daylight faded and the darkness of the night gathered we felt the chilly fearfulness which comes with no longer being able to see clearly in the forests. I remember deliberately getting on my hands and knees and crawling into the darkest places under the bushes to discover that in reality there was nothing to fear. My hands reached into the scary shadows and only found the familiar warm beds of leaves and dirt. I was learning again and again that the natural world was a friendly and fun place.
We rode our bikes through back roads down by the Meramec River past little wooden shack taverns with names like “Pass-Out Palace” and absorbed mysterious hints coming from a more adult and alcoholic world we had not yet entered. Some folks had threatening vibes... confusing to us.
The neighborhood gang was largely friendly. We weren't wrestling to hurt each other, we just liked the wild chasing and tumbling. It was a dance we did. Our fondness for wrestling brought us into close contact. But occasionally the fun would end when our friend Bill seemed to take pleasure in getting too rough and would actually try and hurt someone. There was another kid who liked to torture animals. We couldn't imagine wanting to do that.
By our second summer of playful romance I couldn't help but notice when her shirt brushed upwards as we wrestled that something was happening to her nipples. We went to her house next door so I could see her older sister’s nipples and have an idea about changes to come. They were larger and darker and more mysterious.
Something dramatic happened when the very next door neighbor’s family bought a little black and white TV. Suddenly our endless running in the woods tapered off: “Hey Patrick!” I would shout into his front door... “Let’s go to the Quarry!”
“I wanna watch ‘Sky King!’ And then comes ‘The Cisco Kid!’... And then ‘The Lone Ranger!’” he would say.
I tried watching a few shows but my feet kept itching to be running up the creeks in the woods, jumping from stone to stone. I also loved riding my bicycle through the back roads and remember occasionally experiencing what others would later describe as “kundalini awakenings.” The physical movements involved with pedaling the bicycle for long distances would create sudden floods of ecstatic feelings rushing up and down my spine. It was like a cool spinal drink of delicious electricity.
I gave up on the TV and stayed on the roads and in the woods. But Patrick’s family’s house with its TV had a big draw and was therefore a big drain on my playmates.
Birdie’s and my romance had begun when she was in the 5th grade and I was in the 4th grade at Robinson School in Kirkwood, Missouri. It continued through her 6th grade year, but when she moved on to 7th grade and Junior High School that was the end of that. Her social life had begun in earnest and I, two years younger, could not be in the running. Occasionally she would come over to practice dance steps but she gradually vanished from my life.
Her 8th grade year was spent in India with her Armenian family. I remember signing “love” at the ends of the letters I wrote to her. The voltage set running through my body as I wrote that magic word was as thick as apple sauce.
By the time she got back from India the great wide world had intruded and taken her well beyond the grasp of the boy next door. I heard through the grapevine that she had studied Indian dance and could be seen performing at the local schools. But I never got to see her dance.
Finding Each Other Again
Twenty years later Birdie and I discovered each other again and exchanged two sets of letters. She had married and settled in New York City where she was raising her three kids and I was living with my new Greek wife Leda in Boulder, Colorado. She wrote:
“I’m so glad to finally catch up with you after all these years. I’ve wondered what you’re doing and what you’ve become. You don’t know how delighted I am to find an old friend. We had so many good times growing up together. I hope my children will look back on their childhood with happy memories too! Whenever I return to Missouri I check out our old haunts. The quarry and the old mill are still intact! Some of the recently built underground forts are fancier than ours were I’m sorry to say... Bill decided to end it all and killed himself... Bob got involved with drug dealing and was made to dig his own grave and then wiped out... Mrs. Woods died and a family with a bunch of boys moved in and have already built a terrific tree house... Leda, I think you are with a very good person – at least he was pretty nice when he was a kid! And his mother was always good for a big dish of ice cream! Love, Birdie”
We expressed deep fondness. Our connection had been real for both of us.
I was lucky. I was born into a small but very peaceful family. It was just me and my mom and dad. They were both gentle and loving and concerned with helping to make the world a better place.
