Every First Time

UPPER KARNALI RIVER VALLEY, NEPAL

Some dark night, not that far away from now, you will awaken in the early hours. You'll lie in wait for the reluctant dawn, unable to sleep. It’ll be the restless legs, or maybe the medication, or the hip replacement, the arthritic joint, the stiff back, something like that. Or maybe it’ll just be the habit of the aged, early to bed and all that. 

As you lie there in that lonely dark, you might remember one of your firsts. The elderly do that, you know. They relive their firsts when the end is near. They remember their firsts because of their magic.

Maybe you will remember that first kiss—the flush, the peculiar vivid press of timid lips, that rush of careless adolescence, like skinny dipping in dark, cold waters under starlight.

You’ll remember it because it was a first. A time when you felt something ancient and wistful. You never forget a first. You never forget what it teaches you. And somehow you know that there are more firsts to come when you are ready. Even the dying are virgins in some ways.

There is a certain wisdom in a virgin’s smile. Though she does not know she knows. And she presses forward, eager but afraid.