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My bare feet rest gently on the stones at the bottom of a shallow, rushing stream. Through the clear water, I see the meandering veins beneath the skin. I feel a brisk shiver travel up my body, chilling my shoulders, arcing the hair on the back on my neck, and I remember a time so long ago.
I remember playing in this same stream as a little boy. Hot summer sun piercing my back, cool water flowing over my legs and feet.……a sudden dive and my body pulsed with exhilaration.
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An old photograph of me lies still in an album. A young man; shirtless, sinewy, caramel skin glowing in the radiant sunlight, smiling proudly at the fish I had caught that day. As if wafting on a lazy summer’s breeze, my mind drifts back to the pond, the sun, the soil, the solitude, my youth.
I remember fishing that pond in my youth. Catch fish, catch rays; it was a perfect world of simple pleasures I never shared, I kept it for myself. I can smell my skin from that day; a strong mingle of sweat and fish and black soil. Today, under a long sleeve shirt, my skin remembers the heat of that summer afternoon.
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A young woman places her hand against my chest to keep her awkward balance on a cramped, swaying subway car. I feel the coolness of her hand on my warm skin. I feel the rustle of hair beneath cotton and her dainty fingers.
The memory of a past lover from decades ago flickers in my mind. A sense of longing reaches deep into the fiber of my flesh. A choice I made, a promise I kept. I remember, and quickly, the flicker dies into the present.
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Day journeys into night. I lean and kiss the dumpling cheek of my wife. Her alabaster skin glowing and warm in the soft bedroom light. Her rubicund lips whisper endearment, then graze my cheek as she ends her day for slumber.
Staring at the ceiling, I recall the good night kisses we gave grandma when she came to visit. Her cheeks were ashen, sallow from years of weathering life. But they were smooth, soft, even fragrant from inexpensive toilet water. Two kisses, different, yet similar for what they brought to me.
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So many years have passed from my boyhood spent in that stream, the young man proud of himself and his dreams, the lover I left behind with a broken heart, the husband who honors unconditional love. I have long known the mind is the library of memories, but as I look back so fondly on my past, I now discover something that was always there, but I never realized; skin is the door to the library.
Roger White, on 8 July 2021
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