...or 6th on the list and 3rd Australian .... or am I kidding myself?
It's now May and I started to write this post around Valentine's Day (not that I believe in Valentines ... but it was the timing).
This post is about my first Crush! I think my memories from over 40 46 years have resulted in my Crush assuming mythical qualities. Popular, all round athlete, clever.... (No, I don't really want to look at any photos from that time to undermine the pedestal I have placed him on). About once a year. or maybe every second, third, fourth, year, something will prod my memory of that first "crush". Just recently I visited my old school website (thanks to a notification from the School alerting me to a 50 year Anniversary Celebration) ... and I checked the names under a certain letter of the alphabet. OMG ... there was his name. Him! My long, lost crush. Next over to a facebook site for old pupils. Ah!!! There was his name and profile ... but I could look no further. He had not "friended" me on facebook, and I did not want to burst the imaginary image I had built up around him.
Let's return to 1970. Well. that's a dead give away in terms of where I was at the time. Yep, Madrid. First day of school at Runnymede, and I was sticking close to one of my old school friends from Canberra. She seemed to be with the "in" crowd and was in the class above me. Suddenly a tap on the shoulder. "What's your name ... he wants to know". Well "he" blushed and said "No I don't, no I don't". Thus began a brief time of the "in" crowd attempting to drag me down to the basketball court in order to push me into him. Despite putting on a defiant act by insisting I was not interested ... there was something about this boy that did interest me. For starters, he spoke fluent Spanish and English, (I had a smattering of German, only), and more impressively (for me) he was a great horse rider ... or so the "in" crowd told me. I on the other hand, had never ridden in a saddle so, when horse riding began on Saturdays, I was relegated to the beginner riding school, (El Trebol), while My Crush went straight into the top class at the more elite riding school of Somosaguas. Two of the "in crowd" one day decided that they would tell My Crush I was "madly in love with him" ... he reportedly said: "Well she's an idiot then" (The 'In' girls told me he used a different word for "idiot" .. which I thought I'd better not publish).
First day of riding and I discovered that riding in a saddle (as opposed to no saddle) was fairly challenging ... but OK. After our lessons, we went to pick up the better riders at the better riding school. In the bus home, My Crush saw me get onto the bus and started saying:
My Crush: "Don't let her sit near me!" "Don't let her sit near me!" "She thinks I like her!" (Sarcastic tone).
Crush's Friend (MP): "Shut up"
Me: "I do not!!! I Hate you with a capital H!!"
Crush: "Good!!"
Crush's Friend (MP): "Shut up!"
My Crush then went on to elaborate how he liked someone else in the 'In' crowd. That was it, of course ... the defining moment I realised I had a major crush on this boy, and he couldn't stand me.
Well ... in the next few weeks I was dumped by the "In" group. I admit that being a brash (but innocent) Australian, singing a version of "Happy Birthday" that was not terribly sensible, led to my downfall in popularity to the extent that none of the girls in my class or the "in" group would speak to me .... for months! In fact it was for the entire first term.
Meanwhile, My Crush gave up horse riding in favour of basketball, so he spent most of his time down on the court. I thought that he kept looking at me (perhaps it was my imagination). Have I mentioned he had dazzlingly blue eyes? Well, that blue stare occasionally left my 12 year old heart . The thing is, that it could be quite a cool stare, and I kept my distance because I thought he hated me. Actually, I thought a lot of people disliked me. In that lonely period of those first few months at school, I discovered that I was quite good at playing a horse. Yes, seriously! The "horses" would take up riders, and the riders would try to push the other horse and rider over some imaginary line. Was it a version of jousting, perhaps? Picador?
Anyway, I was always a horse, and my riders were often MP and/or MJB who were popular boys from the same year as My Crush, and very much in the "In" group. (In hindsight, I wonder why the "In" group of girls didn't object to them associating with me.
). Oh well, I decided that being a horse that behaved, was not quite interesting, and so I began kicking and running away. The boys soon got tired of me as a consequence and went back to the "In" girls. My memory of My Crush at that time was vague as I think he was totally involved with basketball at recess and lunchtime. I used to be too afraid to go down to the basketball court anyway. (It wasn't far away as our school was located in two big old houses. Play areas were at the front, basketball court occupied the back garden).
At some point before the end of first term, my Australian friend invited me to go ice skating. Now I had never before ice skated in my life and it wasn't as easy as it looked. I had grown quite tall pre-adolescence, but had a certain "ungainliness" that growth spurts often cause. All legs and arms and no balance ... that was me! To cut a long story short, it took me 12 months to be able to go around the rink once without falling!!! (It felt like 12 months anyway). On that first night of ice skating I was hanging on to the wall for grim life, when I caught sight of My Crush ... who naturally, could skate. Of course he could! That blue stare in my direction again as I stood hanging on to the side, slightly bent over, knees together and my toes all turned in.
Term 2 saw us at General Moscardo gym for PE. Our class was combined with My Crush's class. My Crush was one of the boys who was best at sport, along with his good friend (IP, if you must know). What chance did I really have, I ask you??? Ungainly and clumsy and someone he didn't like or talk to??? What could a starstruck girl do to get noticed? The answer: "Monkey walks", sometimes known as "Bear walks"!
One sport session, we were to have four teams competing against one another by completing a number of physical tasks. (You know the sort - running, hopping, jumping, dribbling a ball ... and monkey walks). Mr Owens, the sports teacher (and basketball coach), chose the four best boys as team leaders. Rather than get them to pick who they wanted (which generally would have taken the entire sports session), Mr O decided to allot people to each team. What did I do? I manoeuvred myself into a position where I was allotted to My Crush's team. I ran, I jumped, I hopped for My Crush ... and our team did quite well. Next was a "Monkey/bear walk" race. (I was reminded of this last Friday when my personal Trainer asked me to do that very same task ... a sign that I had to write this post imo ). Monkey walks are hard work, and our team was struggling. Of course, My Crush had no difficulty, but one of his favourite girls was really making hard work of it. (He was very sympathetic, I might add). OK ... now was my chance to get him to speak to me. I asked him how to negotiate the bench at the half way point when I was on hands and feet. He spoke to me!
Sure, it was to explain how to get over the half way point .... but he spoke to me! We were coming horrendously last in this race, so it was all up to me. Forgive me for boasting, but I was actually rather good at monkey/bear runs, and I set off at a gallop on hands and feet. I overtook everyone, negotiated the bench as I had been instructed, and came home with a good lead. Even better .. he said - "we won because of you!".
Unfortunately, My Crush always seemed to like other girls and I was way down his list . Sadly friends who knew of my crush seemed to enjoy reinforcing the fact he liked someone better than me, and the people I confided in about my Crush seemed to enjoy winning his affection ,,,, or so it appeared to me.......
One of my signature songs from that time was "Hello, Goodbye" by The Beatles. It pretty much summed up my relationship with My Crush. "You say Goodbye, and I say hello; hello, hello, I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello"
Sample writing from my Book of Secrets:
Me: "oday ouyai hinktai ehai ikeslai emai?" "ehai ossedtai aya lowerfai tayai emai taya hetai asketballbai ourtcai" suspect that wasn't intended for me, but hey ...!
Friend: "howai nowskai ?!" "Iyai illwai skai imhai omorrowtai"
Me: "ONAI!!! leasepai ontdai!" better said ... he might say "Who? Her? No, I don't like her"
Actually she did ask him, and he said that he liked me "a bit". OK ... so that was a huge deal better than saying "I was an 'A' ..." for liking him as was the case nine months before. . I noticed him looking at me 'for real' as we lined up for class later that day (and he Smiled
)
Next day, F came to me and told me that My Crush had taken her aside and said:
Crush: "Do you know that thing I said about liking her yesterday .... well I mean the opposite now"
F: "So you dislike her now?"
Crush: "No ... the opposite ... I like her a lot!"
OMG ...
So what next? I didn't know what would happen as have I mentioned that I suffered from an almost paralytic shyness?? I had only dreamed up a scenario of him saying he liked me, I hadn't thought about what would happen after that,
I can tell you what happened .... Nothing! Nada! Zilch! .... well not until the following November ...
Friday, November 4th, 1971. My Crush not only talked to me at iceskating, but we also ice skated together!! I held his hand ... even if I did almost trip both of us up. Divine Crush was an absolute sweetie that night ... even though he talked to my friend a lot of the time, and also tried to get the address of one of his favourite girls who had moved away so he could write to her. What did I care? He talked to me too. I didn't sleep a wink that night, I was so excited, and then ... then .... he unexpectedly turned up to horse riding the next day in order to watch the Junior Boys basket ball team play a game somewhere (they were being transported in one of our horse riding buses).
I guess it became all downhill from that day on ... my family were moving back to Australia and my paralytic shyness meant that I had difficulty seeking out opportunities to speak to him. There were a couple of those but I couldn't put more than two words together in his presence after that halcyon evening in November.
So ... off I went back to Sydney to a very strict all girls' school with just my imagination as company. I didn't make friends easily, so in my dreams My Crush became a paragon who would rescue me from all kinds of difficulties in a make believe world. I never heard from him after I left Madrid - my friend told me that he won the Junior Sports Boy of the Year trophy at the end of that year, and left the School to go somewhere else. Some random entries on the Old Pupils' webpage once the internet came into existence gave me a vague clue that he was living Somewhere in the World.
Dear Longlost Crush,
I hope you don't mind that I have written this post .... It's all in fun and I am having a bit of a laugh at my 12 year old self. I wrote once to say sorry that I didn't say goodbye on leaving Madrid, but I doubt if you even received it. Hoping you have had a great life, and wish you all the best in the future.
J
PS: Did you keep your basketball shirt from your days on the Junior Boys team with the number that rhymes with 'door'?
PPS: I can't make the Reunion because of family commitments ... if I did, my paralytic shyness would overcome me I suspect and I would spend most of my time quietly in a corner somewhere.