Episode IX

First Kiss

Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we.

Do you remember your first kiss? Do you remember where you were? Hopefully you remember who it was with. Do you remember the events that lead up to the kiss? There are two "first" kisses I would like to talk about today. The first one was, what I'd consider that true first kiss, and the second is when I first kissed my wife-to-be.

Some of you may disagree with me on this one, as you may feel that a true first kiss occurs when you start dating. Or at least start getting interested in the opposite sex. My first kiss was way back, probably years before many of you ever had your first kiss.When I had my first kiss it was during my early childhood, I'd say somewhere around pre-school. I know this for a fact, as Top Gun -- yes, that movie starring Tom Cruise who was a rogue Navy Aviator named Maverick -- was out on VHS (remember those? makes me chuckle just thinking about it).  If you've never seen the movie I won't spoil anything here, but there's a scene in which Maverick gets heavily involved with his female instructor "Charlie" (that was her call-sign), played by Kelly McGillis.

For a five year old that scene was practically porn. Though you never see any fully naked bodies you get a good minute or two of 'sexual content'. And when I mean sexual content, it was more like sweet caresses and kissing. Again, for a five year old though, that was porn -- and it was something I wanted to try. So I went back to pre-school sometime after seeing that movie, and because I was the "cool guy" in class, I was liked by at least two girls, that I can remember. What their names were has long since escaped my mind, and their faces are all but fuzzy outlines. But one thing stands clear in my mind, one got kissed and the other wanted to be kissed.

Looking back on it I wonder how in the hell I got away with it. The playground was surrounded by the school, so there was maybe one place to "hide" if you wanted to get away from people. And that place was the metal-tunnel -- you know, that six or eight foot aluminum tunnel that stood parallel to the ground, and you crawled through it. But that's where I went with the one girl to kiss her. Unfortunately I can't remember exactly how it all came about, but I'll do my best.

I believe it started with a tricycle ride around the playground. Our pre-school had several tricycles that were formed differently, one in particular was a tricycle taxi. And I remember speeding around the yard with a girl in the back seat. It was innocent fun. Yet somehow we ended up in the metal tube together. And I must have told her about Top Gun and encouraged her to attempt this kiss I saw in the movie. Since I'd seen the movie a couple times by that point I thought myself an expert, as I remember telling her how to kiss properly. At first it was just a kiss on the lips, but then I distinctly recall giving her a french kiss.

We may have done this a couple more times after that. Recess would be called and at some point during the break we'd meet up in the tube and kiss. It was close-quarters in there, so I doubt we were in there very long, especially with teachers on the prowl. Then one other girl, I'm guessing was told about this, and got me in the tube some time later. We may have been playing 'The Jackson Family' (yes, we were pretending to be Michael Jackson's family) and I was tagged as the father and she the mother. I recall sitting in the tube with her, but I never made a move, I just wasn't interested in her. After that, the 'kissing game' stopped.

After that it was many years before I kissed another girl -- I was a freshman in High School when that happened again. That relationship I think was more physical than social, as we never went on many dates (although, how could we, any time either of us wanted to do something the other was grounded). Needless to say that relationship went south within a couple months. Four more years slipped by until I kissed another girl, which eventually lead to me kissing my wife-to-be.

I'll spare the details on the events prior to the day of that kiss, but I will tell you that I knew when I went to see her that I was going to kiss her. I didn't know when it would happen, but I somehow knew that kissing her that day was meant to be. Turns out I was right.

It was a September day, and I had finally arranged for us to get together and go out on a first date. She told me to meet her at work, and then when she got done she could show me where she lived and then we could go out. When I pulled up to her work I was excited. It was one of those excited moments where you think you're walking around with blinders on. You're so focused, so pumped, so excited about this one thing that you can't concentrate on anything else.

So I get her work, and as soon as I saw her I was 100% certain that I was going to kiss her. I remember how her face lit up when I saw her that afternoon. The longer I thought about it, the more I knew that kiss was coming. It was just when would the opportunity present itself for the action to occur. Her shift finally ends and we head back to her place, and she invites me in while she goes and changes. Ding, ding, ding ding! Here's my chance. The opportunity has arrived for me to slip in and kiss her.

I gave her some lame excuse to want to see her home, "give me the nickel tour," I say. And she does. It's not a big place by any means, and only takes a couple minutes for her to show me all the rooms. But the opportunity to kiss her still hadn't come, some aspect, some alignment of the stars was still missing. And then I saw the porch. so I said, "what's out there?" Like, DUH, what else would be in the backyard. We went onto the porch and she turned her back on me, and it was like the whole world just dropped away. The moment had come. I put my arms around her, she turned and our lips met in a 'nothing else matters' kiss.

There's no way to truly describe this kiss. In The Princess Diaries -- I'll admit I've seen this movie more than once, my wife likes to watch it from time to time -- they called that one special kiss, the 'foot pop' kiss. Where the girl's one foot raises off the ground, as if she's about to take off into the clouds. Or, it could be described in a manner that only Hollywood could capture a kiss. Where the man plants a kiss on the girl and the world just sort of melts away and it's just the two of them. That's the kind of kiss we had.

First kisses can be tricky, as you don't know what to expect from the other end. Are they a good kisser? Will their lips be soft and moist, or hard and cracked? Will they try to slobber all over you with that first kiss, or will it be brief, just to see if it works? But when you find that perfect kiss, it will happen because it was meant to be. The sparks will fly and you will know that you have someone special in front of you.

Just don't go an argue over who made the first move like I did with one girlfriend. Take the kiss for what it's worth, an attempt to make a physical connection beyond mere a mere touch of the hand. Although, some older movies, like in Sleepless in Seattle, where Meg Ryan's character's mom claimed she knew her husband was the 'right one' when he helped her our of a car. But my feelings are, that a kiss will say it all. Either you'll get a spark or you won't. Cher and Aretha Franklin have it right, "it's in the kiss", the first kiss.