Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Once Again.......The Kiss

This is republication of an earlier entry. Perhaps someone hasn't read it, so here it is for that someone.

I was twelve. Maybe thirteen – fourteen. I’m not sure. At the time I was grappling with the man/woman relationship thing. Actually, I am still grappling with it.

Her name was Anita. She was blond and delicious and the absolute love of my life. I saw her on Sunday mornings and evenings and on Wednesday evenings at church. We could sit together and intertwine our fingers surreptitiously under the hymnal or Bible or church bulletin. That is until her mother gave us the evil eye. Once I nonchalantly placed my arm on the back of the pew behind her shoulders, and her mother, sitting on the other side of Anita, whacked my arm in disapproval. I withdrew it quickly. After church services, Anita and I would stroll around the church building together. When we reached the rear of the building, we would quickly hold hands for the few moments allowed us.

Anita liked to write, and so did I. So upon meeting, we would exchange love letters. I remember spending hours pouring over just the right words and phrasing, so that she would gasp in loving and endearing delight. I wish that I could see those letters now. It seemed that we wrote volumes – and I simply cannot imagine what we could have talked about.

One Sunday afternoon, I was invited to have lunch with Anita and her parents. I don’t remember a thing about the meal, but I do remember later sitting with Anita on the couch in the living room. She was showing me a photo album. Of course, the large album was in between us and covering our laps. And yes, our hands met underneath the album, and our fingers massaged and locked in a juvenile ecstasy.

My mother had delivered me to Anita’s that day. As we sat on the couch slowly perusing the album, my mother arrived to pick me up. She drove into the driveway and gave a little toot on the horn. It was time for me to go -- and it was horrible. I was where I wanted to be, and Anita was where she wanted to be. We were wrapped in our own magic, and it seemed cruel that outside world would pull us apart.

The album closed and I shifted in preparation to leave. Anita looked at me, ripping into my soul with her blue eyes. I looked back, breathless and longing. To this day, I am not sure what happened next. Did I lean toward her, or was it her that leaned toward me? All I know is that suddenly we were kissing. My mind blanked out and the world was a whirlwind. I guess by today’s standards, we would consider it a polite, chaste kiss. No tongue, no groping, no gasping, no moaning, no frantic twisting of the head with lips crushing. But – it was just the most fantastic, endearing, sensuous kiss in the world.

After kissing, we stared at each other for a second, and then I stood, with my heart soaring dizzily. I somehow stumbled to the door, crashed out onto the porch, and immediately walked off the end – the part of the porch with no steps. I tumbled to the ground. I lurched back to my feet, walked five steps, and crashed right smack into the trunk of a large tree. Down I went again. Slowly I returned to my feet, and cautiously made it to the car. I looked at the front door. Anita was standing there with her hand covering her mouth. And my mother was asking, “What’s wrong with you?”

This was my First Kiss.

I accidentally came across Anita a few years ago at a convention. She was married, as I was. And she was older too. I think we both wondered about our youthful passion, and perhaps wanted to tap just a piece of it. We sat down and drank coffee together. And we couldn’t think of anything to talk about. After all those love letters – we couldn’t think of anything to talk about. But, there was one thing that did connect. She asked, “Do you think that you can get to the car without killing yourself now?”

I'm pretty good at embellishing stories, but this one occurred exactly as I described it.

16 comments:

  1. I absolutely adored this post. You told the story so well. It sounds perfect, and gentle and sweet, and exciting and innocent and perfect. My faith has been restored in the world and its little moments.

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  2. Very well told my Friend, if only this generation had the respect and admiration for one another you described here and hopefully they do in a sense.

    I really enjoyed this post.

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  3. August of last year I connected with a girl I had a crush on when we were in the 6th grade. I blogged about it here: http://pleadignorance.blogspot.com/2009/08/paradise-lost.html

    I talked to her about it briefly while we were still on FaceBook together. She didn't remember my embarrassing blurting out my love for her, but she did remember that she thought I was "cute".

    Sometimes we get to play that "what if we had a time machine" game. How would that have all played out if we could do it over again? I guess we'll never know, and perhaps that is a blessing, really.

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  4. what a sweet post, Jerry! I like to take trips in my time machine now and then, to escape to those places where the smallest of things caused us butterflies. first kisses, first dates, what ifs ... and now with things like facebook, we can actually find those people again and see what they are up to.

    so, I have to ask, did you make it to the car alright the last time you saw her? ;)

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  5. Sweet story--very nicely told. Nothing better than falling in love with a writer!

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  6. That is the most wonderfully romantic post! Falls on the ground and all!

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  7. Fantastic! Right off the porch and into a tree! You realize you completely made her life right then. She can cash that check forever.

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  8. That was the most tender and beautiful descriptions of a first kiss I have ever read. It was full of all the innocence and wonder of what a true first kiss with someone you are crazy about feels like. I remember my first kiss..it was at a Halloween party with a boy I had a big crush on. He liked me for about a week. There were no tender love letters or massaging of fingers beneath books. So I like to consider my first kiss with the first boy/man I truly loved as my first kiss. I believe I fell in love with him the moment our lips touched. For me...that is my first kiss story that is burned into my memory. Such a lovely post...thank you.

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  9. Enjoyed it just as much the second time...great post and worth repeating!

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  10. What a great post! You fell for her that day for sure! ;)

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  11. I read Robert T.S. post and came back.
    Strangely enough, my old neighbor had called last night to tell me the odd duck that lives across the street from her is engaged, to a man she has 'always liked; since high school. They are now in their mid-fifties (we won't go into her standing under my bedroom window two winters ago, singing (?) opera, in a desparate attempt to lure the newly widowed neighbor across the street out...).

    The man told my friend's husband he had been shy in school, and this woman had been the first to make him feel comfortable with himself. He was convinced it was fate/karma, something magical. (no one is planning on telling this poor sould the woman he 'ran into' on the internet has been shopping for a man there for absolute years...!)

    Then I read this post and Roberts. I thought definately Carl Jung's theory on Collective Concsiousness. When you add the internet into the equation it seems so, well, X-Filish...

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  12. You definitely bring back memories of a more innocent time. I remember a girl I was in "love" with, and how we held mittens while ice skating. Just the feel of her mitten in mine suddenly turned me into the Wayne Gretzsky of the ice rink.

    I never had the pleasure of falling off a porch into a tree, though. I DID miss out on some of the good stuff.

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  13. This one's a keeper!!! Hard to remember days so long ago but they were once very real :)

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  14. Ain't love grand! (when you can get your feet to work right) Such a sweet story and funny too! I cracked up at your mom..what's wrong with you? LOL!!

    I wish I could remember things like that.

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