Some years, I find, seem to hold more significance than others. Meaning, in my case, that I can remember more things about them, more vividly even, than others. 1986 is one such year for me. I was eight years old, going on nine, and my life was about to change. Fairly soon we would be moving to a new house, and not that I would leave many (if any, at all) friends behind, but where we went to I didn't really connect to anyone. 1986 was also a World Cup year, and I was absolutely in love with the West Germany football team. That loss against that amazing argentinian team was something that bruised me deeply at the time. 1986 was also the year where the one-two punch of both 'Highlander' and 'Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars' - events that to my closest friends I have written about at length - hit me. Also, it was the year where I fell in love with Maltesers.
But it's 1986, and I'm living outside Lisbon, where both my parents worked. Me and my brothers went to school here as well, so that meant waking up extra early in the morning to get ready. I never was a morning person, I'm much more of a night owl myself, and if I could, I'd sleep during the day. But I rarely had that luxury, and certainly I didn't have it back then. What I did have, though was about a half hour trip from our place to Lisbon, where I could get some sleep. We always had the radio on, often one of the most uninteresting ones with people reporting the news, that drab, monotone voice lending itself to further torpor, but sometimes we'd tune in to one with music on.
My father was driving this day - I can't recall if they took turns or not, but sometimes my mother would drive as well - and I was in the back, next to my brother. We're nearing the entrance to the city proper, now, reaching the end of a freeway, and just after a bridge, there would be the toll booth where everyone had to stop. Sometimes there'd be a long line of cars there, stretching out beyond the bridge itself. It's one of those days where you're not fully stopped, but you're only moving one slow inch at a time. I'm recently woken from sleep, and still mildly dazed, I look about me. We're about halfway through the bridge, and below us ran a a foul, brown sludge of a river, its bed littered with flotsam and jetsam. The bridge itself lies nestled in a valley, connecting one end to the other, and on this particular day something peculiar was happening. To one side of the bridge, the sky was very cloudy, dark clouds at that, and it rained. To the other side, it was like a summer's day - a bright, yellow sun shone. The rain that was on the opposite side was also making a rainbow a bit further ahead where it met the sunlight, and high in the distant sky, was the fading moon. I could see it, partly, just not the whole of the moon. And I swear I'm not making this up, however convenient this juxtaposition may seem - the radio was playing this very song. I can't claim to that being the very first time I heard it, as I recall it it was pretty much everywhere at the time, but I can certainly say that it was the first time I truly listened to it.
That scenery I beheld, coupled with the soundtrack to it, has never left my mind. To this day I'm still not sure whether I dreamt it or not.
That's it for now, tomorrow there'll be something else - though I still have no idea what.
Amicitia fortior!
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