My first crush was my second grade art teacher.

Her name is forgotten to me.

She dressed all in black and wore berets.

She told us she commuted on Fridays to my elementary school by subway from Greenwich Village, where she lived. I knew artists and Beatniks harbored there, enjoying vastly Bohemian lives. The year was 1960. Willem de Kooning and Jack Kerouac stalked the taverns and alleys.

Who comprehends the ways of the seven-year-old heart? Maybe I was in love with the dream she was selling, as my own seven-year-long life until we met had been so void of enchantment.