Remembrance, part one

The memory of a first love.

I was nine when I met H. I belonged to the Star Section in my first three years in grade school but when I learned that the 4th grade adviser was the Cruella DeVille of the school, I had my mother talk with the principal so I could be transferred to another section.

It was the first day of school, the sunniest of all June mornings, and already I was gloomy and ready to go home. I knew nobody from this class and nobody knew me. I braved the stares from the door to the back of the room to take a seat. I kept my head down. That's when somebody tapped my shoulder and asked "Ikaw yung takot kay Ms. O ano? Hello, ako si H." He had short curly hair and the roundest pair of eyes I've ever seen. I did not say anything.

That is all I can remember with my first meeting with H. The rest of the next six months is also pretty much in a Photoshop motion blur except that I knew I had the biggest crush on him. I don't have any more distinctive memories of H during that year except this particular Christmas when we had a Nativity play.

H was Joseph and although I tried my very best to be Mary, our homeroom teacher chose her niece. I was devastated and played an angel instead. During rehearsals, I would batter my teacher to place me beside Jesus, Mary, and (most especially) Joseph to emphasize the divinity of the family. And of course, so that I would be closer to H but I didn't tell her that. She brushed off my idea and put the angels about ten feet to the front/side so it would look like we are looking down from heaven or something to that effect.

Come production day, when all of the world was watching, an angel got lost and was thought to have descended down from heaven, away from the other angels, to be with Joseph. I strayed and stood beside H, with our shoulders brushing and occassional smiles were thrown at each other. I was watching my homeroom teacher from the side of the stage making all these weird flapping of the arms telling me to join the angels up front. Oh boy, she really had her angry face on. I had some light not-following-the-teacher sermon but it was all worth it. When I look at the pictures from that play, I can't help but smile.

H and I pretty much hit it off, becoming friends and all that. I was the only girl he invited to play agawan-base with him and the other school boys, although he later told me he thought I was 'one of the boys' that's why he called me for their dirty games so often. But hey, he was the first guy to ever have an effect on me, so it never mattered under what circumstance brought us together, as long as we were together, it was all fine. To be nine and in-love.

How about you, what's the story of your first love?