I am not your old man but if I were, I would talk to you about kissing – Not sure how your day started but I began mine with puppy kisses. I stopped for a coffee at the local Temple on my way to a writing event. Exiting with mocha in hand I met a most happy chocolate brown somethingdoodle sparkling to have someone bend down say hello and give her a pat. Front paws to my knees she stretched to her full height lightly licking at my face. Excited puppy kisses to say how happy she was for attention.
Her owner said they had just come from training classes, which the pup was, gratefully for my part, disregarding – don’t jump up, don’t lick, sit sedately, no barking, no lively exchanges. Instead, ignoring all importuning, she lavished me with the happiest of attention, twisting and turning and dancing at the joy of contact. We might wish to replicate such enthusiasms in our greetings and partings.
I’m not saying we should bounce and dance and randomly lick strangers faces, although it might be an interesting approach to life until one is arrested. Thank god they don’t do that to dogs. But what if the exchange of a buss was done with enthusiasm and not boredom. How many times is a kiss given and received as if it was a bus token – we hate handling the dirty thing, but it gets us a ride.
I know we don’t want to bend our elderly aunts back and plant them with full tongue Rudolph Valentino passion, but a little excitement please. Such intimate greetings should never be de rigeur passings. If such an exchange is warranted, do it enthusiastically. Take a lesson from the puppy and be glad for the opportunity to be excited.
If you are going to exchange a lip smack with your loved one as you rise in the morning or head to bed at night, or as you are leaving to run some mundane errand, don’t let the errand attitude insert itself into the kiss. Kiss them. You love them. Don’t let the opportunity float by without something real. Put your hand behind his head and pull him close. Wrap an arm around her waist, maybe even a hand grazing a butt cheek, draw her close and tease a little tongue into the exchange. This is meant to be an act of intimacy not a cursory peck.
Yes, there are many other intimate things we share with those we love, but unless you are an overindulgent reprobate, those things go on in private and don’t require instruction. The kiss is often a public act, not always sexual and may necessitate a teachable moment. A kiss has levels of heat, levels of warmth, levels of passion. It can be offered and accepted, refused subtlety or even abruptly. I have experienced an occasional slap in my life even deservedly a few times – by the way, timing can be everything. Don’t try cute kissing as a means of making up after an emotional knock-down-drag-out; you should get punched.
Kissing is an affirmation of love. Make such statements fully. Look in her eyes. Watch his expression. Caress her chin as you move in. Touch his lips after with your finger tips. A kiss is not over at the part, it carries beyond. Feel the suffusing of warmth from your chest to chest. Recognize the goosebumps generated as his lips grazed the back of your neck or brushed your ear. Feel the tangle of your hair from his entwined fingers and know all of the moment.
A kiss, in the end, is a most precious gift filled with meaning; or it should be. If it is not, give the man a poke or slap and tell him to pay attention. If it is not, stop her mid-stride away and tell her to try again.
A kiss should never lack feeling – never. The puppy did not greet me perfunctorily. I may have been the first or tenth soul that bent over in greeting. It didn’t matter. At that moment I was the only one and I deserved all the enthusiasm she could muster. Oh, that we could regularly render the same affect.