The Kiss...

I’ve been in love only once. A very long time ago. And for a very short time. But it lasted forever.

A romance Untainted by the first four letter word. The first harsh ugly word. The first possessive, jealous, bigoted, arrogant, righteous, selfish word.

We talked. He spoke seven languages, English not his native, and spoke them all well. But it’s what he did with his words that grabbed me with octopus arms and hugged me in tighter.

He wove them. He used them for music, for background effects, for medicinal purposes, for tickling, for thinking out loud. He sent words instead of flowers, and gifted me with stories. It was as if we had known each other a lifetime in no time at all…. And we did, because we shared our lives, our childhood secrets, our silly dreams, our disappointments …. The brown bagged everyday stuff, the chaotic “Isn’t this a crises to anybody, but me?” crap, the “I believe in…….” fairytale endings , the “I’ve never told anybody else this….” secret lives that we tote around in dirty Samsonite luggage….. Afraid to pitch, for fear it will be discovered, weary from hauling it around all these years.

We danced and sang out loud, added words, made-up words, used other world words. When he left for Desert Storm, we mailed words across the ocean , army lugged in duffle bags, wrapped in yellow envelopes. We traded tiny cassette tapes, weeks, sometimes months, in the traveling, just to hear each other’s words….

We listened. To each other. And danced in the kitchen.

I married a man whose vocabulary consisted of one, two, three, and four letter words. Occasionally graced by a few BIG words like… Toyota, Delmonico, and some expletives best left off the list. We talked about who fed the dog last, what the neighbors were up to, and the interest Rates on our credit cards. We danced on occasion. We ate well always. We fought like hell.

I listened last night. I watched the words as they were born. As you struggled to build them into a formula that I could understand, as your body spoke the words before they left your lips. When you finally quit fighting with yourself , the words fell fluid like into our space. Where I could touch them. Sense them. Hear them.

And then we danced in the kitchen….