Cycles

Two cycles started turning in my life when I was 13 years old.  

First, I became fertile.  How grown-up I felt, how scared.  I still occasionally played with my Barbie dolls, but only half-heartedly.  I started wearing block-heel sandals with short shorts and floppy hats, plucking my eyebrows, and I bought my first pair of nylons. Boys ignored me but grown men were looking twice.

Second, I became daydreamily fixated on my middle school math teacher.   This second cycle has a wider arc, one that has continued throughout my fertile life.  Three years after the math teacher, I developed an unwieldy desire to be loved by my photography teacher, and filled two diaries with admiration of him.  I had the normal, ephemeral crushes on classmates and random movie stars at that age, fancies that I'd describe as romantic, even at times dramatic, but ... the teacher thing had a dense gravity that tended to become (downright) cathectic.  In the presence of the beloved teacher, I was mute and muted, could only ask for guidance, hope to be seen, giggle slightly and bat my eyelashes.  I never did master fractions or f-stops.

At some point (college) I discovered monogamy, service and work, along with the difficult, negotiated, competitive, but also productive and deep relationships that have formed my adult life. 

So... back to the first cycle.  I once hated that predictable bloody recurrence; now I miss it, though it's but half a year gone.  It brought with it vivid dreams, sullen rages, torrid passions and sometimes even murderous intent.  Good poetry fuel.  Now I see my body solidifying, my hair whitening, my disposition mellowing.  Rage has subsided into dull, manageable heartache.  Joy is in the little things, though I still (secretly) want all the big things I've always wanted.