The First and Only True Love
Many people have tried to come to grips with the concept of love but from the time of Adam and Eve it has remained an elusive concept to fully grasp. Many say that it is a special and wonderful feeling that a man feels for a woman and a woman for a man. They say that this feeling is a spontaneous physical reaction when a particular man and woman meet for the first time. They say that it is a phenomenon that happens automatically which can scarcely be explained. Some say it usually happens first with the contact of the eyes, then a word or two, immediately after the eye contact or at a later instant; the word then progresses into the first ‘touch’ not so intimate but nevertheless heart throbbing perhaps because of the unfamiliar and novelty of the encounter; then it develops into an outing to a particular theatre, and later, that first eye contact transforms itself into a full blown relationship.
There have been a myriad of meetings and encounters associated with the ‘love’ genre (adapting the word ‘genre’ to fit into the realm of relationships), that it defies the imagination. However, it is perhaps fortunate for us to understand and appreciate that each of these encounters all pivot on the same set of instinctive motions – the eye contact, the word or two, the heart throbbing first touch the outing to further and consolidate the first eye contact and then the more intimate stages of the relationship. It would perhaps be too presumptuous of me to say that this is what actually happens, or that this is the only way that the first ‘love’ encounter does happen. What I do say however is that my opinion is based on personal experience which I will relate later, but before I do, I wish to point out another component of this first ‘love’ encounter.
We all understand what an eye contact is and how it happens. You simply ‘look’ at where you are led to look. We also understand the first word we utter to the other person; we simply ‘say’ something. Whilst the touch is a little more difficult to do, we simply ‘touch’ the other person when we have mustered enough courage to do so. What we absolutely cannot understand and fathom is the driving force behind these physical motions especially in our relation with a particular person. We encounter people every day, we look at them, we speak to them and we touch them especially in performing the handshake as a gesture of greeting or familiarity with others. All these gestures and motions dissolve and evaporate into oblivion when we come face to face with ‘the one’, the one and only one. I know it sounds a little corny, but that’s the way of it. It happens. It did happen and it was very real!
I was in Australia at the time and the year was either 1968 or 1969. It doesn’t really matter. I shared a flat with a good Australian friend of mine, Neil Waterman. Neil and I both attended Monash Teacher’s College. He was a swell and suave guy who had a nurse for a girlfriend named Irene; a typical, friendly and trusting Australian girl. I really liked her open honest face. The flat was located on Balaclava Rd. in the Melbourne suburb of Caulfield. It had a park close by where I went for a jog every afternoon. I was almost 23 years of age and I was in the prime of my life, very strong, athletic and a show off because of it. Next door to our flat was a middle aged couple. The man was a second husband; the woman was ordinary but with European ancestry and she had a daughter by her first husband named Theresa (Terry for short). I can still recall her physical attributes: she had green eyes and jet black hair, slight of frame but not overtly thin. She had an oval-like face which I thought was very cute, but it was her eyes that were mesmerizing; they were green like opals and her mouth was just the right size for the rest of her face. Her teeth were also small and a little ‘bucked’, but they were even and were just right for her.
I was sitting in the lounge of our flat next door when I first saw her. She had just come back from school in her school uniform with her hat on. She walked past the front window without turning. I stared at the profile of her face as she glided past my front window and then looked down again when she disappeared and I thought nothing of that incident. The next time I saw her and on numerous occasions after that, was when she travelled from and back to the flat with her boyfriend in his car. His name was Michael.
Then one day, it happened. Yes, it just happened! I was standing in the kitchen washing dishes and looking out of the back window, where the cloths line was swinging slightly in the breeze. She appeared quite suddenly from nowhere carrying a basket of washing to hang on the line. I am normally a shy person but I was a different person that day. I looked intently at her as she glided into full view. She put her basket down and straightened up to hang her first washing on the line as I kept looking at her. She was directly in front of me and when she lifted her head, the only thing that could possibly happen did happen. Our eyes met and at the same time, I felt a warming sensation travel up my spine. My whole being focused on those eyes, and penetrated deep into them and likewise her eyes penetrated into mine. I didn’t know how she felt at that particular moment in time but I felt that my whole being went towards her; my eyes, my will, my thought, my whole inner self moved towards her with all the tenderness within me, and yet at the same time it was inter-mingled with a desire to have, to possess, to call my own. At the same time I felt something coming from Terry, as her eyes told me everything that was swirling in her inner being. She was thinking and feeling exactly the same way I was thinking and feeling (I know because she told me later).
We stood there for perhaps 30 seconds, but the ‘something’ which I could neither explain nor fathom that flowed between us was very real and it registered with me. I was sure that it also registered with Terry because from that moment onwards, we could not help looking at one other every time when an opportunity offered itself and to my joy, the looks began to be mingled with subtle smiles that would simultaneously light up her face and mine. Sure and sweet smiles that confirmed we had zeroed in on each other’s feelings and that I was hers and she was mine. Michael began to fade from the picture and though I felt sorry for him, the die was cast and I couldn’t retrace my steps back to where I had once been.
It was love! It must have been, but try as hard as I can, I still cannot explain from where the feelings came, what they were made of and how they joined two people together to become one and produce a beautiful daughter. I love her now as I loved her then and my heart aches for her as it did then. Alas I live thousands of miles away from her and our daughter, but that first ‘eye contact’ will always stay with me and I will take it to my grave. Does she still remember that first eye contact? I know she does but like everything else, time will erode its potency and perhaps she will also take it to her grave. Ah!, I made a terrible misjudgement. I should have decided there and then to marry her. I should have transformed the urge to possess and to own into a reality. I should have dared and decided to stay with her for the rest of my life, but I didn’t and I am now suffering the consequences. So, if you are reading this piece and you have not experienced that ‘eye’ contact, the first ‘hello’ and the hesitant ‘touch’, don’t be alarmed because it will happen, and when it does, make sure you change it into something deeper than just an urge to possess and to own. Turn it into love (whatever it means and from wherever it comes), and live life to the fullest from that first eye contact.
Many people have tried to come to grips with the concept of love but from the time of Adam and Eve it has remained an elusive concept to fully grasp. Many say that it is a special and wonderful feeling that a man feels for a woman and a woman for a man. They say that this feeling is a spontaneous physical reaction when a particular man and woman meet for the first time. They say that it is a phenomenon that happens automatically which can scarcely be explained. Some say it usually happens first with the contact of the eyes, then a word or two, immediately after the eye contact or at a later instant; the word then progresses into the first ‘touch’ not so intimate but nevertheless heart throbbing perhaps because of the unfamiliar and novelty of the encounter; then it develops into an outing to a particular theatre, and later, that first eye contact transforms itself into a full blown relationship.
There have been a myriad of meetings and encounters associated with the ‘love’ genre (adapting the word ‘genre’ to fit into the realm of relationships), that it defies the imagination. However, it is perhaps fortunate for us to understand and appreciate that each of these encounters all pivot on the same set of instinctive motions – the eye contact, the word or two, the heart throbbing first touch the outing to further and consolidate the first eye contact and then the more intimate stages of the relationship. It would perhaps be too presumptuous of me to say that this is what actually happens, or that this is the only way that the first ‘love’ encounter does happen. What I do say however is that my opinion is based on personal experience which I will relate later, but before I do, I wish to point out another component of this first ‘love’ encounter.
We all understand what an eye contact is and how it happens. You simply ‘look’ at where you are led to look at. We also understand the first word we utter to the other person; we simply ‘say’ something. Whilst the touch is a little more difficult to do, we simply ‘touch’ the other person when we have mustered enough courage to do so. What we absolutely cannot understand and fathom is the driving force behind these physical motions especially in our relation with a particular person. We encounter people every day, we look at them, we speak to them and we touch them especially in performing the handshake as a gesture of greeting or familiarity with others. All these gestures and motions dissolve and evaporate into oblivion when we come face to face with ‘the one’, the one and only one. I know it sounds a little corny, but that’s the way of it. It happens. It did happen and it was very real!
I was in Australia at the time and the year was either 1968 or 1969. It doesn’t really matter. I shared a flat with a good Australian friend of mine, Neil Waterman. Neil and I both attended Monash Teacher’s College. He was a swell and suave guy who had a nurse for a girlfriend named Irene; a typical, friendly and trusting Australian girl. I really liked her open honest face. The flat was located on Balaclava Rd. in the Melbourne suburb of Caulfield. It had a park close by where I went for a jog every afternoon. I was almost 23 years of age and I was in the prime of my life, very strong, athletic and a show off because of it. Next door to our flat was a middle aged couple. The man was a second husband; the woman was ordinary but with European ancestry and she had a daughter by her first husband named Theresa (Terry for short). I can still recall her physical attributes: she had green eyes and jet black hair, slight of frame but not overtly thin. She had an oval-like face which I thought was very cute, but it was her eyes that were mesmerizing; they were green like opals and her mouth was just the right size for the rest of her face. Her teeth were also small and a little ‘bucked’, but they were even and were just right for her.
I was sitting in the lounge of our flat next door when I first saw her. She had just come back from school in her school uniform with her hat on. She walked past the front window without turning. I stared at the profile of her face as she glided past my front window and then looked down again when she disappeared and I thought nothing of that incident. The next time I saw her and on numerous occasions after that, was when she travelled from and back to the flat with her boyfriend in his car. His name was Michael.
Then one day, it happened. Yes, it just happened! I was standing in the kitchen washing dishes and looking out of the back window, where the cloths line was swinging slightly in the breeze. She appeared quite suddenly from nowhere carrying a basket of washing to hang on the line. I am normally a shy person but I was a different person that day. I looked intently at her as she glided into full view. She put her basket down and straightened up to hang her first washing on the line as I kept looking at her. She was directly in front of me and when she lifted her head, the only thing that could possibly happen did happen. Our eyes met and at the same time, I felt a warming sensation travel up my spine. My whole being focused on those eyes, and penetrated deep into them and likewise her eyes penetrated into mine. I didn’t know how she felt at that particular moment in time but I felt that my whole being went towards her; my eyes, my will, my thought, my whole inner self moved towards her with all the tenderness within me, and yet at the same time it was inter-mingled with a desire to have, to possess, to call my own. At the same time I felt something coming from Terry, as her eyes told me everything that was swirling in her inner being. She was thinking and feeling exactly the same way I was thinking and feeling (I know because she told me later).
We stood there for perhaps 30 seconds, but the ‘something’ which I could neither explain nor fathom that flowed between us was very real and it registered with me. I was sure that it also registered with Terry because from that moment onwards, we could not help looking at one other every time when an opportunity offered itself and to my joy, the looks began to be mingled with subtle smiles that would simultaneously light up her face and mine. Sure and sweet smiles that confirmed we had zeroed in on each other’s feelings and that I was hers and she was mine. Michael began to fade from the picture and though I felt sorry for him, the die was cast and I couldn’t retrace my steps back to where I had once been.
It was love! It must have been, but try as hard as I can, I still cannot explain from where the feelings came, what they were made of and how they joined two people together to become one and produce a beautiful daughter. I love her now as I loved her then and my heart aches for her as it did then. Alas I live thousands of miles away from her and our daughter, but that first ‘eye contact’ will always stay with me and I will take it to my grave. Does she still remember that first eye contact? I know she does but like everything else, time will erode its potency and perhaps she will also take it to her grave. Ah!, I made a terrible misjudgement. I should have decided there and then to marry her. I should have transformed the urge to possess and to own into a reality. I should have dared and decided to stay with her for the rest of my life, but I didn’t and I am now suffering the consequences. So, if you are reading this piece and you have not experienced that ‘eye’ contact, the first ‘hello’ and the hesitant ‘touch’, don’t be alarmed because it will happen, and when it does, make sure you change it into something deeper than just an urge to possess and to own. Turn it into love (whatever it means and from wherever it comes), and live life to the fullest from that first eye contact.
