kiss – The View from a Drawbridge

After yesterday’s blog entry, Chuck is on my mind quite a bit. Even more so than usual, because I recently celebrated the 7^th anniversary of our first kiss, or as I like to describe it, “The Moment My Life Changed”.

I actually made the first move. We had been talking for 4 hours on this particular day. We had everything in common. And he was about to leave for the last time. He had been my roofing contractor, and his crew was finished with the job and had left. I knew that if I didn’t do something, he’d walk right out of my life and I’d never see him again. So I kissed him.

And I felt it in my knees. Which was kind of dangerous, since we were standing on my roof. But it was worth it.

I had 4 amazing years with Chuck before he died, and he really taught me a lot about what love is, and also what it isn’t. Ours was a complicated relationship. But I don’t regret any of it, and I miss so much of it.

While he was alive, I described that first kiss as the moment my life changed, but little did I know. My whole life can be divided into before that kiss and after it. That first kiss meant I experienced love, but it also meant I experienced death and grief and excruciating pain and loneliness and despair.

That kiss and that love and that death also sent me headlong across the country, to Seattle. That has also been a bit of a jumbled bag of joy and sorrow. No regrets there either, most of the time.

Every year when this anniversary rolls around, I experience very mixed emotions. Part of me thinks I should stop writing it on my calendar, because I suck at remembering dates, so if I left it off, I would stop riding this particular roller coaster. But part of me thinks, no, I should hold on to it, at least until I experience another kiss that I feel in my knees. If I ever get that lucky.

Damn. What a kiss that was. Hoo!

First Kiss

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About 20 years ago I saw an episode of Doogie Howser, M.D. in which a very young Neil Patrick Harris, as the lead character, fresh from some triumph or other, walks up to a woman he has never met and says, “You’re beautiful. Can I kiss you?” And then he kisses her and they both go their separate ways.

When I saw that, I remember thinking, “Oooh! I want to do that!” The thought of having a brief, innocent, extremely sexy encounter with an unknown person with absolutely no consequences, giving me an utterly clean slate on which to paint fantasies for the rest of my life, greatly appeals to me. In fact, “Kiss a total stranger” is on my bucket list.

Ah, but who am I kidding? I’d never risk the rejection or the potential look of horror and the subsequent awkwardness or assault charges. I’m not brave enough for that.

But the other night, with Russell Brand’s autobiography My Booky Wook on my nightstand as I drifted off to sleep, I thought, “Russell would let me kiss him.” Let’s face it, though, a great deal of Russell Brand’s, er… brand… revolves around his libido, so I’m fairly certain he’d kiss just about any woman, even one like me whose fantastic 19 year old body is hidden under a thick layer of fat and age.

So yay! That would remove the whole rejection factor, and there’s the added benefit that I happen to think he’s one of the most gorgeous men on the planet.

But here’s the question, would I actually do it?

Heck yeah! Didn’t I just say he’s gorgeous? (Well, at least when he doesn’t go wild with the mascara and the teasing comb.) And I wouldn’t have to worry about being tempted to go further than a kiss, because the man admits he doesn’t practice safe sex, so… no thanks.

But I think that after the kiss, instead of feeling triumphant, I’d feel a little sad. Because there’d be no emotional connection. There’d be no meaning behind it, no “might have been”, especially for him, so it would have no value. Well… reduced value, anyway.

In his book, he says he enforces his “identity and status as a man through sex and the seduction of women.” I’d love to talk to him about that, one on one. Not judging, but frankly, I’m curious why that identity and status needs to be enforced over and over and over again as he does. I suspect he may not be doing something right.

I would love to point out to him that what makes him a man has very little to do with sex and seduction. What I find most attractive about him is his erudition and intelligence, his ability to look at the world from his own unique perspective, his personal honesty about his rocky past, and the way he attacks life with a white-hot intensity. I like that he seems to have an utter lack of social filter, and that, to quote My Fair Lady, he treats a duchess as if she was a flower girl. Everyone the same. I find that charming.

So don’t worry, Russell, you’re a man. You seduce the world with your words, and I therefore think I’d get more of a kick out of talking to you than I would kissing you, but I’d be more than willing to test that theory. So if you ever pass through Jacksonville, Florida, call me, darlin’. You could spend the wee hours of the morning hanging out with me on the drawbridge. It’d be our delicious little secret.

Oh, and by the way, I’m told I’m a great kisser. Just sayin’.