We start out unformed, a ball of squalling flesh, completely part of mother, the presence. Just the space where food arrives, things happen, we learn to do what we’re told. But the “me” inside that remains incipient, patiently waiting, while we learn about the outside world. Early on, I loved the outside, the trees, becoming part of them, part of the world, likely a response to being somewhat crushed by that overwhelming mother, but still requiring, needing, even being a part of her.

Kindergarten marked a change, on my own, but not really inhabiting “me” very well. There were boy things, violent little beings. And girl things, different from me. My recollection is that I’ve always liked girls. Playing alongside girls as a preschooler. Looking at girls while shopping with mom. Oddly curious in a non-judgmental way about what mystery made them girls instead of boys. Little people, like I was a little person, with bright eyes and laughter and tears. But not like me. Different habits and manner, not that I thought in those terms, different clothes, different relationship to parents. Boys were rough and tumble, and liked it that way. They were OK to play with, but mean. In most ways I was outside of that typical boy world. With the girls, their little dolls and softer ways (little did I know the iron fists inside those little velvet gloves), I felt safe. At this distant point, it’s all dreamlike, the little dresses with frills, the giggles and whispers to each other. So different from the punches and wrestling and playing with blocks and little metal cars and planes. It was a fragmented universe. The world outside had its cars and noise and big people. The world inside the family had its own inherited and newly formed stresses. The boy kid world of playing with boys, rough and coarse and loud. And the magic world of giggles and bare legs and long hair, and beautiful laughing eyes.

While I have memories of elsewhere, of the smell of the ocean, of arguments and quiet heat, my first really distinct collected memories are of a city, with old houses and large streets. Traffic and noise. Cuddles from Mom, her screams of “WHAT ARE YOU DOING,” and the sudden swats and beatings. She was a complicated lady. Trips to the ocean, rocky beaches dotted with huge driftwood trees, chill air off the Pacific, ferry rides, and the smell of Douglas Fir standing tall, so many gone now.

I don’t know her name. I barely recall the circumstances. In the old picture, she and I stand together in cute raincoats, with rubber boots, grinning five year olds. Once we started walking to school, her hand was in mine, very warm. I was used to my hand in a larger one. Mommy’s while shopping, holding me back from running off. Pulling me up out of the mud. Always good with mud, I was, and water. And climbing things, hands plucking me off a rock or tree where too-high was too easy for me to achieve. Holding tight as the train puffed into the station – steam was still king over there, the smell of coal smoke, the oily black engine, bits polished, blobs of oozing grease. The old engineer dripping oil from a long-spouted can. The noise, hisses and bangs and luggage. But my eyes were down the platform, a blue dress and little knees and black shiny shoes and dark brown hair with a band. Funny what we remember.

My companion’s hand was so very different from mommy’s. My size. Warm, not firm, not holding me back, or clinging, or wanting anything, just there in mine, feeling her next to me, sharing the look into the fall trees, the sidewalk wet after the rain, maple leaves spinning in the water along the gutter, bright colors. She was electric, alive. Very alive, pulsing with life. Not yet pretty to me, neither desired nor needed. Just another small child, holding my hand, but a different, alien child. A girl. A fuzzy impression after the decades, except for her hand in mine, and noticing her, her being, her body, next to me. Enjoying that very much, and realizing with a start that I had my world, with ME in it, and she had hers, with a separate HER in it, and that those worlds were shared for a moment, through hands gently held.