From what I remember, my friend’s older brother, who was only a few years older than me I think, took an interest in me, and I felt his interest was a special one. One day he asked me to go to the woods with him. He had always been nice to me and his younger brother always bragged about his older brother being protective of him. Protective! So, I agreed to go with him to explore the woods he wanted to explore. I wondered why he didn’t want his younger brother, my only good friend at the time, to go with us.
We started our journey to the woods he wanted to go to by walking along the train tracks past the now infamous blackberry bushes to an opening where we could turn into the tree line. While we were walking along the train tracks, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I would love to have an older brother. I was an only child, and my family consisted of me, my mom, my grandpa, and my grandma. The newest addition to our family was my mom’s boyfriend.
As we began to enter the woods, I remember how bright and sunny the day was. I remember that it was early summer, and school had been out for several weeks. And because we have now lived in our new neighborhood for almost a year, I did not have my little farm garden to go to every day. I felt sad about this but was happy to be in our new neighborhood with other boys my age or close to my age to play with. I was still eight years old in early summer, but my birthday was only a couple of months away. I felt like this summer was going to be full of new and wonderful experiences.
As we got deeper into the woods my friend’s brother took my hand and said that he wanted to explore my body and he wanted me to explore his. I didn’t know what he meant. I just thought it was part of exploring the woods adventure we were on together. He then asked me to take my shirt off, and then he said to take my shorts off. He then took my underwear off. He then began to explore my body. He then took his shirt off and told me to explore his body like he explored mine. I didn’t understand and was a bit surprised at first. He then had me imitate how he explored my body.
And as I remember more about this summer, I would realize that this exploration would happen many more times in different locations. And he picked the locations. Several explorations occurred in the field between our neighborhood and our school playground when the grass was tall in the field and could shield us from anyone who might be around. I remember the sun shining brightly and the sky being free of clouds. These explorations never happened when it was cloudy or dark as I remember them. Only on sunny days. Why?
As I look back on this experience as an adult, I realize that what happened in the woods that day would begin to take away my age of innocence, and that my young life would be changed in many ways from this moment forward. And the continuation of these explorations throughout the summer would reinforce that loss of innocence in my memories. And I am not sure how to classify this memory.
As an adult I often think that maybe I was at fault and was it wrong. Maybe I did something to encourage what happened. These are questions I don’t think I will ever know the answer to. These experiences happened and there is nothing I can do to change them. But I do not feel any bad feelings towards him, or to what happened. I don’t know why. Maybe because I am a forgiving person. And I think that he was also learning about who he might be as well.
What happened to me during the summer of 1964 would come back into a conversation I had with my stepsister when I was visiting my father before he passed. My stepsister and I were sitting at the dining table talking about how my father and his new family were always looking for me to make sure I was ok.
As our conversation evolved it became a little questionable about race and sexual orientation. To be honest, I was very shocked at what was being said. I was shocked to hear that gay people were more acceptable than any another group of persons who lived in town. Based on this conversation she asked me if I remembered this boy who lived on my street. I acknowledged that I did, and she let me know that he died at a young age. She was not specific, but I think that I knew what may have taken his life. I didn’t’ know for sure, only a guess.
At that moment I again thought about that summer and what had happened. I did not share that memory with her. I could have, but I chose not to. Hearing about his passing was sad in a way, and I really didn’t know how to feel. Something happened that summer that I don’t think was right, or maybe even wrong. I didn’t really know what it was. And I have recognized that this became a confusing time for me. Hearing about anyone dying, especially when they are young, has always troubled me. So, to this day, she doesn’t know about me and him, and what happened that summer before my mom, her boyfriend, and me quickly moved to Arizona.
Ok, I am now writing about this experience for the first time because I am pretty sure that there are others out there who have experienced the same thing, or maybe something similar, that happened to me during my age of innocence. And if you have, please know that it most likely was not anything you did to encourage it. As kids we learn about who we are as we experience life’s little moments, whether they are good experiences, bad experiences, or dark experiences. That is for us to classify in our own thoughts. We are simply kids who explore everything we can. That is how we learn. That is how we become strong. That is what makes us who we will become.
This is not an easy piece to write because it is the first memory of my body now becoming different to me. I do have a tear in my eye as I read what I have written so far and recall each time this exploration happened. But it is a reality that I have lived. Once you feel this way you can never take back the emotions revealed, and you can never change what is now embedded into your memory.
As life moves forward through the various stages of your youth and into adulthood, all your memories that have been stored somewhere in your internal memory bank will, on occasion, sneak out to challenge your thoughts and emotions. I realize that this moment of my young life changed me from my age of innocence to maybe my age of discovery.
And as an adult, I have often wondered if there is a place between these two times in one’s life. Or do you immediately lose your innocence and begin to discover a newness in everything in your life experiences, and how to better interpret what you will now discover.
And what is innocence?
If this was the beginning of my age of discovery, how did this new age of discovery change me. Did it impact my life more than I know. I think it did! And I think that this experience helped me understand that the next chapter in my life forward to the future would now give me many opportunities to explore new and different experiences from a different perspective, and ones that I have never thought of before. Was this the beginning of the next chapter in my life that started my journey towards growing up?
And I would add that this new journey of discovery did strengthen my character and did give me more knowledge of how to accept and overcome any of life’s challenges that I am given. Join me as I write about this next chapter of my young life, and this next journey as we leave North Caroline and head west, in my life remembered.
My age of discovery begins…
“Follow my story for new vignettes”