美文欣赏:FIRST LOVE

I still remember the way the light touched her hair.She turned her head,and our eyes met,a momentary awareness in that raucous fifth grade classroom.I felt as though I’d been struck blow under the heart.Thus began my first love affair.
Her name was Rachel,and I mooded my way through the grade and high school,stricken at the mere sight of her,tongue-tied in her presence.Does anyone,anymore,linger in the shadows of evening,drawn by the pale light of a window-her window-like some hapless summer insect?That delirious swooning,asexual but urgent and obsessive,that made me awkward and my voice crack,is like some impossible dream now.I know I was so afflicted but I cannot actually believe what memory insists I did.Which was to suffer.Exquisitely.
I would catch sight of her,walking down an aisle of trees to or from school,and I’d become paralyzed.She always seemed so poised,so self-possessed.At home.I’d relive each encounter,writing at the thought of my inadequacies.We eventually got acquainted and socialized as we entered our adolescence,she knew I had a case on her,and I sensed her affectionate tolerance for me.
“Going steady”implied a maturity we still lacked. Her Orthdox Jewish upbringing and my own Catholic scruples imposed an inhibited grace that made even kissing a distant prospect,however fervently desired.I managed to hold her once at a dance-chaperoned,of course.Our embrace made he giggle,a sound so trusting that I hated myself for what I’d benn thinking.
At any rate,my love for Rachel remained unrequited.We graduated from high school,she went on to college,and I joined the Army.When World War Ⅱ engulfed us,I was sent overseas.For a time we corresponded,and her letters were the highlight of those grinding endless years.Once she sent me a snapshot of herself in a bathing suit,which drove me to he wildest of fantasies.I mentioned the possibility of marriage in my next letter,and almost immediately he replies became less frequent,less personal.
Her Dear John letter finally caught up with me while I was awaiting discharge.She gently explained the impossibility of a marriage between us.Looking back on it,I must have recovered rather quickly,although for the first few months I believe I didn’t want to live.Like Rachel,I found someone else,whom I learned to love with a deep and permanent commitment that has lasted to this day.