Winter butterflies

We stood in October shadows, lights from the football field spilling brightly through bleachers, falling towards giant oak trees which canopied the concessions shop.

She shivered, golden waves and curls peeking around her earmuffs, cheeks bright red, grin open and happy. I remember most the soft mist of snow, tiny flakes drifting around her, the reflections of lights amplifying their glow, her hair, her smile, creating a radiating halo.

My sister had said, "There's someone I want you to meet." This wasn't the first time she'd done this and wouldn't be the last. It should have been my clue that I was about to fall. She had a way of doing that. Pulling the right person to me at the right time. Click click.

I was a just a girl then, a year older than Bell. She, my sister's friend, looked at me eagerly, "You play saxophone?"

I nodded, chatting encouragingly, not realizing how lost in awe I'd fallen. "I play flute," she volunteered, "I wanted to play saxophone but I chose the flute."

A part of me fluttered. I couldn't quite hear what the flutter said. It didn't occur to me to try to understand this sudden lens flare of the brain. The way snow seemed softer than snow could be, the brassy sounds around us seeming brighter than brass can be and here was this girl, more mesmerizing than people should be, eyes gleaming, telling me how she couldn't wait to join marching band and could I tell her all about marching band, will it be amazing, marching band?

Thump thump. Flit flit. My heart. My heart.

It's hard to describe why I didn't recognize what I was feeling, the winter butterflies tickling my abdomen. I lived in the middle of cornfields, where progressiveness was: "Gay people are fine. Oh wait, you, my family member? That's a different thing." Normal was: "It's not natural." As far as LGBT+ hate? I don't want to talk about what it was to conservatism of the time. Only straight people were valid. How could I, I teenage girl, feel drawn to other girls?

Certainly, I'd told myself, the few times I was forced to acknowledge those feelings in general (I mostly ignored those flutters, letting them be buried under the wonder of life), certainly, the cause of my attraction and admiration of women resulted from the constant, unrelenting, ubiquitous, prolific advertisements everywhere, using the beauty of women, the seduction of the feminine, to sell everything from perfume to cars. How could one not pick up those vibes and respond accordingly around women, I thought? Even straight girls like me. It was Pavlov 's theory,** right?

Right? (Not right.)

It wouldn't be until 16 I would start to suspect....could I be...bi?

When I met her, a mere 14, almost 15 years old, it hadn't yet clicked for me. Aren't all youthful nights, cool falls swirled with early snows and drums and cheers, magical?

Adults everywhere at the time (unfortunately similar to today) oozed cutesy wootsy over little boys and girls in imagined romantic relationships; elementary schoolers, tiny tots, even babies, shoehorned into crushes, boyfriend/girlfriend, or engaged. Snapshots, coos, 'adorable' 'art', and endless murmurs about how that little four year old girl and six year old boy would surely marry when they grew up, was considered totally normal and acceptable. (Which is not cool. Leave babies alone to be babies.)

But do the same between girls and girls and boys and boys, and kids of any other gender, at an age where kids start to have actual crushes and suddenly the same straight people shipping babies are talking about perversion and predation of children, not because we were kids - teens - but because it's not straight.

The impact of those attitudes in the world I grew up in taints my ability to talk about beautiful memories of falling in love in my youth. So many years later I still wince at saying I fell head over heels with another girl at 14 going on 15 in a way I don't when I talk about falling for a boy with the most beautiful blue eyes at 13 going on 14. How deep that shame can go, when shame was all people saw in it. Comparatively though, that wince I still hold might be a mild price to pay for surviving a time where people were terrified that anything gay would ruin society, where corrective violence thrived in vitriolic approval.

Despite living in that kind of culture, I was gifted the brilliance of falling head over heels for an amazing girl with sparkly eyes and the voice of a windchime; I received the blessing of having her in my life for more than a person deserves; my life brimming with snow globe memories.

And decades later, when I think of all things beautiful in the world, when I think of joy, when I think of love, I return to this specific memory faithfully, it playing to its end, which was only a beginning.

My friends approached us under the oak trees, concession stand scents wafting through the chilly ear muff season air, a hundred teenage voices chattering energetically away. Half time was nearing; we needed to get to staging so we could put on that marching band show.

I flashed my teeth, a gleaming smile; I asked her if she wanted to join us for popcorn later. Did she want to come with us to the edge of the marching band area? That accidental unspoken question, the small domino that led to the big domino: "Would you become a forever part of my life?"

Every now and then my thoughts drift back, When was the first time I fell in love? I trace and retrace caverns and racetracks and bucolic paths of memories. River banks, footpaths and city sidewalks of recollection. At the end of each, I come to her. Always her.

"For sure, for sure!" she brr'd cheerily.

Thump thump, flutter flutter. My heart, my heart.

___________________________________

*Bell is a pseudonym.

** Look at this adorable article on how someone used Pavlov's theory on their cats. To be clear, I was completely wrong about the idea that I was conditioned to be attracted to women by ads similar to how Pavlov trained his dogs. Sexual orientation DOES NOT work like that. But this article was so darn cute that I want to share it so you get to see cutesies too.