Sunday, April 09, 2006

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time. So many stories start that way as does mine. Once upon a time I was nothing more than a little white girl destined for the same school my mother went to, the same sorority, where I would meet a man (most likely from my fathers fraternity), he would propose to me at the vineyard and we would get married (with a reception at The Ritz) then move into a house identical to the one I grew up in, where he would pursue a career and I would join the women's league and raise two children, two children just like me and my brother.
But apparently this was not to be. By the time I was sixteen it was apparent I wasn't going to live up to the Crestwood family name, or perhaps the day my mother walked in on me kissing the head cheerleader it became suddenly obvious.
It was in this time that I discovered there was more to life than being a Crestwood. In this freedom from expectation I became a person my parents now refer to simply as a hippie tree hugging freak.
Yet how I became who I was is unimportant. See this isn't really my story, or even Goldy's story. Instead it's our story.
I would like to say that Goldy was a pivotal point. My first adventure with a bad girl, but there were ones before and plenty after. I would like to say she was my great love affair or the catalyst that led me to write the next great novel or love song. But no. She was simply a life lesson that was long overdue.
I met Goldy when I was 23. I was working at a rinky dink club as a glorified bar bitch (though they actually called me promoter). Essentially I handed out flyers, ran the door, took care of coat check. Whatever was needed of me. This wasn't a forever job. Rather it was something I did to make new friends, to step outside of the world I had been boxed into for so long. To meet girls.
And I did. I met her.
One of my duties at the bar was to spend the night circulating, acting as host, like it was my living room and this just an overdone cocktail party. It was on a Saturday that I saw her.
It had been a night of blue liquor. Blue liquor was always my weakness. It didn't matter if it was island blue pucker, or blue caracou or hypnotique as long as it matched my eyes I would spend the night soaking my liver in it until I was drunk beyond belief.
Then somewhere between the third blue mother fucker (an insanely toxic blue cocktail) and a miller lite I saw her… Looking all kinds of sexy, throwing back Malibu and pineapple acting all slick and cool, like she wasn't afraid of anything. I remember sitting on that bar stool, immediately distracted not seeing anything but her.
Perhaps it really was her, yet some people tell me it was the liquor, but all I remember is a slurred rendition of smooth.
"Hey you. Let's make out"
And then we were kissing. It was one of those kisses that you can't describe. The sort that all the verbs and adjectives in the world could never touch.
I can't say I really remember what conspired after that moment. But there I was a week later laying in her bed, in her arms gazing at her. It wasn't a moment I thought would lead to anything. Rather an exploration of hormones and youthful adventure. But there I was.
Looking at Goldy was almost like looking directly at the sun. She glowed. But not in the prima donna princess way, instead she was radiantly lit like the sweetest sunset. Her skin was a symphony of earth tones reminding me of honey and caramel, tempting me to taste her soft skin, tempting me to run my fingers through her short ebony hair and lose myself in the sin of her flesh . She had a way of staring at me, her eyes like sculpted rosewood flecked with pure amber, that would make me question everything I thought I knew about her, wondering whether I ever truly saw Goldy.

However what I remember the best is her hands. They were small like a child's and rough from days of working construction. Yet they demanded attention in the way they touched me, or how she always laced them with my own to combat any intense moment.
Her delicate fingers would mingle with my own as we talked. Me trying to extract stories and secrets as is my inquisitive nature and her insisting that there was nothing to tell. But then in moments of golden rarity she would tell me stories.
She would tell me about dropping out of school at fourteen. Of losing parents. Of leaving Puerto Rico. And she would tell me of girls.
The girls that came and went. The hearts she broke. The cheating and fights. And of that one girl that broke her heart.
Well that isn't my story to tell, it's important that you understand that with out that one girl my story would never have been possible.
Goldy and I came from very different worlds. The brain and the thug, the butch and the femme, where as I grew up in the majority she would always be a minority. Yet we both had a vulnerability that came from having seen and lived through things the other could only imagine. We were young, and cynical and physically passionate. Somehow little what we had in common was enough to string our lives together even for a short time.
This is the point where I should confess that it started as a hook up. Something to quiet yearnings and to provide a brief yet explosive release, something that would deem her a stud and me a slut.
It was always supposed to be just about fucking. Yet there in the dark quiet of her room something happened. We became friends. Then we became lovers in the truest sense of the word. And finally I realized that our world is more prejudice than we can ever imagine. And it was in the light of day I realized the truest meaning of heartbreak and my own imperfection.
We had been seeing each other for more than a month. Nights stolen and sacrificed to sweaty embraces and heated kisses. Dawn lost to long talks and hushed giggling.
Laying in bed drinking Medalla with Tego Calderon or Pitbulls voices carrying on in the background serenading the moment with rich reggaeton melodies and beats we would explore the world while smoking cheap cigarettes and filling an empty coconut shell with ashes. I would ramble about literature and art and she would muse about the trials life had presented her with.
And then I started missing her. I would be at the gay bar with my friends sipping a vodka cranberry and realizing she wasn’t there, or at home doing laundry, while she was out with her friends. I realized that “we” didn’t exist outside the bedroom.
Everytime her name snuck out of my lips my friends tried to convince me I was being “played”, that she was just some ghetto girl from the hood that didn’t give a damn about me. They wanted to know about her made could possibly make me crush on her so hard and questioned the capacity of my common sense for dating someone like her..
And I almost started to believe they were right(or at least believe that I should believe they were right). It made sense though… Goldy didn’t belong on the dance floor at my bar bouncing to DJ Sammy any more than I did fumbling through salsa steps. Yet it was still a surprise when I sent her a text message one day, just to ask her what she was doing and her response came back “I’m on a date”.
Her date was a petite Mexican girl, a girl who spoke Spanish (apparently knowing how to say “donde est el lesbiana con el cerveza” didn’t count), a girl who knew how to dance to salsa and had Latin pride. In a matter of weeks her date became her girlfriend and her girlfriend became her wife.
So this is where you ask… Is that it? Is that her story? And yeah it is. It’s that simple. I lost Goldy cause of worlds that were so different; I never got to create a beautiful story, a love song or a sonnet. Because of those invisible lines that I was too scared to cross.
Over the years I have tried to pretend that this didn’t matter. That she was just a phase. Something that happened. That it just was what it was. But the truth is losing Goldy devastated me. I remember spending nights preaching to her about social injustice (I was a sociology major) and rhapsodizing about what was wrong with people… Yet there I was making my own assumptions, my own mistakes.
I often wonder what would have happened if I had spoken up and told her she was amazing and beautiful and special. What if I had told her she deserved the world? What if I hadn’t been so afraid to step out of my “class” and social stratification? What if I had only been given a few more nights? What if those nights had turned into a lifetimes?
But in the end she was a lesson… Through Goldy’s kisses I learned that I am more than what everyone thinks I should be. And when I lost Goldy I learned that the color of my skin, or the languages I speak should never stop me from loving someone with all my heart.
It wasn’t one of those melodramatic events where I cried and screamed and ate a gallon of ice cream every night. Rather losing Goldy was a dull ache in the deepest part of my heart. I was reminded of my foolishness every time I saw a couple holding hands, or a Puerto Rican flag. I still am.
Once upon a time I had a lover, she was amazing and beautiful and her arms were the heaven I always searched for. Once upon a time I was a fool.
Posted by XO-JK :: 8:21 PM :: 3 Comments:

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