When starting a thing it is good to do so at the beginning.
 
My first memory is of my mother. I was an infant and she was weaving the magic that would make me the strongest man in the world. Though I understood every word she said to me, I didn’t understand her words, only their meanings. The words I learned later, long after she was gone, and applied them to that night, to the memory of it. Of her.

Moving through a memory is like moving through a dream, and as if in a dream, we must move forward without questioning, for in a dream to question is to become lost. Let meaning come afterward, if it will.

The memory began with her presence. I was young. So young my eyes did not really work yet. The images that came through them were largely meaningless. Sight was so confusing and without reason that I kept my eyes closed, blocking the madness without.

I was acutely aware of the separation from MOTHER. I was somehow outside her, and I knew this was a wound that could never be healed. I wanted to scream out. I wanted to die of loneliness.

But then I could sense her, somewhere near, whispering to me.

Whether this awareness of mothers is universal among very young babies, or part of the magic that she enveloped me with I couldn’t say. I only knew that she was near me, and that the rhythms of her body contained the oceans of sound and the symphonies of touch which I had been immersed in from the beginning of time and that, though nothing would ever be right again, I could at least find comfort from the nearness of her.

I stretched my trembling hands out for her, reaching desperately into the chaos for her touch.

Instead of her hand or her breast, I touched something else, something that seemed at once strange and immediately familiar. Words are useless here. I felt something like a string of ribbons. Or more like a lattice of spider webs. Perhaps it was like bead of sweat drifting down a young lovers back. It was all of these things and it emanated from her and wrapped around me, and drew me into her. Pulled me into her with an intimacy that was as dangerous and innocent as a mouth to the breast.

It was magic. Her magic. And it washed over me. Poured into my mouth and nose and ears and carrying a seed into the fertile virgin woodlands of my consciousness. Like a snap of the fingers I could see her. She was standing over me, smiling down at me, her face equal parts love and worry.

“I don’t have much time Otto. I have to leave you little one. I have enemies, terrible people who would hurt you to hurt me.”

Her hand drifted down to my forehead.

“Poor Otto, you are such a beautiful baby. Always know I would stay with you my whole life if I could. If it were safe to do so.”

She looked away, out the window of the dark room we were in. whatever she saw out side caused her face pinch with worry.

“Otto. Later, when you can understand all of this, you have to believe it. Don’t let yourself think you are crazy.

“Your going to be a strong boy. A strong man.” I could see the web of magic coalescing around her fingers, flowing outward and down upon my face.

“You are going to be very strong. And you are always going to help people who need you. I don’t have anyone Otto. It is a terrible feeling. You be there for anyone who needs you and deserves help.”

“Your father will love you. He is a good man, but he wont understand you. He is part of the everyday world. Be patient with him.”

I felt a strange hesitation within her. Doubt surfaced on her for an instant, making her look older, for a few seconds I could see the weariness within her.

“I love you Otto.” She said. And like a thunderclap the understanding was gone, the strands of magic withdrew as fast as lightning. I was alone and forever separated from all I had ever know.

I had the mind of a normal baby afterwards, except for those few moments. They were crystal clear then, and they are crystal clear today. From that moment on it was as if the moment had just happened. I had an intuitive understanding of the memory, but it was many years before I could understand any of it on an intellectual level.

It was many years before I realized it was possible to question this memory.

As I grew up, I indeed grew strong. By thirteen I was as strong as a full grown man. By fifteen I was stronger than the strongest man in town. Any young man with gifts like that is in danger of becoming arrogant. But I knew that my own mother had power to put mine to shame. She had in fact created me, with the magic of birth, and she made me strong with some other kind of magic.
 

And then she was gone.

Ottoman Von Luitgard