I remember my mom yelling at my dad through the phone, and wondering when I might get to meet him. I remember meeting him, the sound of his laugh, the slope of his shoulder, how he rubbed his feet together at the end of the day, how he took the list my mom had made of everything I couldn’t eat and wadded it up and threw it away.
I remember meeting my son for the first time at age 16, how we hugged, how he walked with a swagger and reminded me of a cross between James Dean and my own father.
I remember “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac playing on my mom’s record player as I lay on the floor on my stomach trying to recreate illustrations of Garfield and Charlie Brown.
I remember meeting my grandfather and thinking his skin looked like alligator hide, and noticing the faded blue anchor stamped into the side of his upper arm, and how he laughed when I ate a hot pepper off the bush in his yard.
I remember marveling at a pregnant harvest moon while driving with my mom from Astoria to Portland at night in an old Audi Fox, how we talked and laughed and sang along with the tinny-sounding radio.
I remember the crippling crush I had on a girl i didn’t really know in my junior year, just hooked on her looks and the ideas I had about her in my teenage head.
I remember the first time I had a wet dream, waking confused to a damp sheet pressed against the heat of my thighs, my adam’s apple tight in my throat as I slipped out of bed in search of a cool drink of water.
C.M. Rivers 