An Ode to the Kiss

I walked tonight with a guy named Ian, who I found out the following about through relatively mediocre conversation, which progressed into this whirlwind of excited chatter and arm grabbing:
1) He's from Calgary
2) He went to Strath from 4-12, which means that he had the same teachers that I had, and the same teachers that my dad had when we went there.
4) One of his best friends is Ben, the boy that I would do anything for back at the tender age of 6. Which leads me to my point:

So I starting thinking about Ben. I REALLY liked Ben, and one day, I arbitrarily chose him from all of the other boys in grade one to be the one that I wanted to kiss. I have such strong memories of chasing him (literally, full tilt) around the tire park, in and out of the playground, and then finally, thank my lucky stars, I managed to corner him inbetween two banks of lockers one day after lunch and in front of the entire grade one class, planted a kiss right on his lips.

And thus, the motivation for my entry. A devoted ode to the kiss, potentially one of my favorite topics (and one that I don't think I've ever done justice to before).

Back in the easy days of Ben and Bri, kissing was easy: it was a game, and I wanted to be the winner (the first hint of my competitive side emerges). Kissing Ben meant that I had 'won' - the game was over, and I went back to playing kick the can with my girlfriends, and poor Ben had to go back to the soccer game and explain himself. It wasn't until adolescence, grade 7 in particular, that everything changed, and it pretty much happened overnight. All of a sudden, a kiss goes from not even registering in your pubescent radar, to being the only thing that you can think about. I remember having big sleepovers with my group of friends in grade 7, and always asking 2 very important questions: who has got their period yet, and who has been kissed? Of course, none of us had been kissed, but we ceremoniously recorded everyone's answer, as well as their desired boyfriend into our group journal, which someone was ALWAYS assigned to protect from the boys. We would then swap kissing tips that we learned from the Sweet Valley High books, and practice on our pillows, who we always imagined to be the boy of our dreams. No, I'm not kidding. We kissed pillows. We also discussed in great detail where to put your hands, how to breath, and where both noses could fit.

My first kiss happened at the mall in grade 7, with a boy named Danny. He was from Alaska, was a whole year older than me, played football, was a die hard Dolphins fan, and in my eyes was an absolute dream. He lived a block from the mall, so we would 'hang out', nervously eating frozen yogurt and experimenting with holding hands. We were waiting for our parents, and were standing in a hallway that leads to a bank of phones and a couple of water fountains, and I think that my heart was beating so loudly that I couldn't hear myself think. We stopped talking, and he grabbed my hand, and decided that right then, right there, he was going to kiss me. My palms were so sweaty, I kept rubbing them on my pants, and I thought that I was either going to throw up all over him, faint right there in the mall, or not know what to do. It was, thinking back, a horribly awkward, very drawn out kiss, and not the most romantic place to be, but it was absolute magic. I felt like I was floating on ten feet of air for the rest of the week.

So what's happened? 10 years after my first kiss, and many other firsts to follow:
- first french kiss [I wanted to die]
- first time I ever saw a guy with hairy armpits [I wanted to die]
- first heartbreak [this time, I really wanted to die]

Something got lost.

My favorite thing in the world - more than soccer, more than dancing, more than being by the ocean ... is to kiss. If I'm with someone that I think is amazing, I could (and would) snog them for 10 hours straight, grab something to eat, and then kiss them more. Not the kind of kissing that so many guys love at 22 or 23 - the "I'm just kissing you so that I can try to take your shirt off", or the "kissing while frantically trying to get to as many bases as possible, as fast as possible" ... I hate that. I'm so so so sick of it. My favorite thing is just plain, lying under a toasty blanket, spending the evening watching-but-not-really-watching a movie, kissing. I miss that.

So - the ode to the kiss. Let's revive it, shall we?

Part one - the first kiss. Men? You have to know when the moment is right. And the moment will invariably be there, if you're in tune with the dynamic of the evening. The 'moment' is perfect when, in the middle of a close and intimate conversation you find yourself inching closer and closer togehter, almost imperceptibly, until you go from being three feet away, to two feet away, to brushing hands and lacing fingers together. Your hands will intertwine, and as both of you realize that this is 'the moment' (without realizing that the other person realizes it too) you stop talking, one of you begins to blush, and there is an entirely unstoppable energy ... a lightness and warmth that begins to build and rise and move between your hands. Time begins to slow down to almost a full stop, and you realize that every part of your body becomes hypersensitive - as your fingers brush, you'll get a jolt of electricity up your arm, and goosebumbs where her fingers touched you. At some point in this suspended moment, your eyes will lock, and you'll both realize that the other person knows and feels exactly what you are knowing and feeling. This eye contact is the point of no return. This is the moment. This is when everything is right in your world. The moment is that perfect second in time when you can look through someone's eyes directly into their soul, and the rest of the world, everything around you vanishes. Your knees get weak, your hands start to shake, you're trying to breath but your lungs won't fill with air. You look at eachother in this amazing enchanted suspension, neither of you wanting to make the first move, but neither of you ready to step backwards out of the emotion and energy that's moving between you. That unbelievable rush, right as your heads start to move together, eyes locked, then fluttering, then closed. All of these things make up the moment that you've been waiting for. This is the ode to the perfect kiss.

Has that ever happened to me? Eh, in varying degrees. Most of my first kisses were somewhat awkward, hastily implemented stealth attacks, but once or twice (okay, I can think of two times) that moment was so perfect that I could have replayed it in my mind a thousand times. But I digress...

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Phew. I feel better! I starting thinking about Ben, which led to thinking about my first kiss, which probably led to my general love of kissing, which lead to a NEED to write all of this down! Yeah - it's 6:30 in the morning, but there's something to be said for the hopeless romantic, isn't there? I had an amazing night, a truely spectacular night, and I feel like even that has given me wings. It's all coming up roses, and I'm content to enjoy every minute of it.

So - it's time for a normal person to get some sleep (I get it, I get it!). Especially with a school line-up this week that would make a grown man cry (I'm talking mad work to be done). More tomorrow, and maybe something a little bit more concrete, and less ... eh...idealized :)

Plus - a soccer game tomorrow, for the walkhome co-ed team. I could not be more stoked about this. I haven't been on a soccer field since grade 12, and I pulled out all of my old gear, ready to go. I can't wait to get out there and sweat!