The Perfect Kiss

My favorite movie of all time is the Princess Bride.  At times the movie has paralleled my life from the characters, the relationship I had with my Grandmother, the time I almost married Prince Humperdinck to quest for true love.  

The ending scene. The perfect kiss. The boy doesn’t mind as much. We hear “since the invention of the kiss, there have been 5 kisses that have been rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.” 

I’ve have three memorable kisses that when I close my eyes that moment still lives. One, healed my heart. One, a stage kiss that people still talk about.  One, thrust together every possible emotion.
 
​                "You kiss a beautiful mouth, and a key turns in the lock
          of your fear." - Rumi.

The great Sufi poet Rumi wrote “you kiss a beautiful mouth, and a key turns in the lock of your fear.” We are tangled up by fear, heart ache, commitments and questions.  People who listen with their hearts, speak through actions and intuitively understand.  Words only compliment the actions.  Words without actions are meaningless.  This is why a kiss can change a persons life in a moment in time.  A kiss can heal a heart. A kiss can unlock fear. A kiss can make you smile. 

The Canadian
The Canadian and I met at a music event when he took my photo with the worse possible flash. My response “are you trying to make me look more pasty white and blind me all at the same time?” One of those moments were words just spill out of my mouth.  His friends busted out laughing.  He turned red.  He admitted that this was the first photo he took that night with a flash that he didn’t know how to use.  That brief encounter turned into a 12 hour long conversation complete with a walking tour of the city.  

There was plenty of time between bars, parks and odd alleyways to catch a train home. Somewhere around midnight, the topic of love came to the surface.  Two heartbroken people managed to find each other.  His girlfriend left a three weeks ago. Mine, left a year ago. Disappeared. Reappeared and tonight was finally moving his stuff out of my house.  I didn’t want the night to end because I had to face an empty house.  We both realized that in the last years of our relationships, even though we were with someone, we were really lonely. Now we are just alone.  As the sun was coming up over Lake Michigan, the crisp reality of a new day was at hand.  With nothing else to say to each other, he kissed me.  I had forgotten what it was like to be kissed. Kissed by someone who connected with you. Humperdinck and I never had that connection.  I bit my lip and took a deep breath.  The feeling was mutual. Running away to Canada was easy. Staying and cleaning up the mess of my life was hard.  Facing the next year alone was better than being lonely in a relationship.  The Canadian helped me remember what it was like to be kissed.  I will never settle again for another Humperdinck.  

The Stage Kiss
The Artist takes the blows on the heart and turns it into art.  I wrote Touch, inspired by the poetry of Rumi shortly after the Canadian. Set in graveyard, an elderly man visiting his wife’s grave meets a young woman who just buried her child.  The two share stories of there lives, giving each other wisdom and an ear for listening.  He told the story of how his daughter met her husband. “If you want love, you need to have a story, ever great romance has a story.  Sometimes love is unpredictable and we just have to follow our heart and trust and see what happens.”  The couple is reunited at the end of story.    

It was one of those nights, were everyone in the cast was on. The audience was engaged, crying, laughing and smiling.  Across the stage, we stood there. Two performers ready for the cue to kiss.  I think at that moment we both were wondering who was our Farm Boy.  Meeting center stage, he grabbed my face and we kissed, melting into each other as the tango music started.  Our foreheads never separated.  Sweat dripping down our faces and instinctually, undirected, we kissed again.  As he lead me off stage, we stopped and looked at each other.  “What just happened out there” I asked.  He said “I think we had dancing stage sex. Don’t worry I’m still gay.” “Okay, good cuz’ that’d be weird.” During the rehearsal process, he made the comparison of Rumi to Star Wars and we’d discuss.  It is true George Lucas was inspired by Rumi. Since then, he has become my Luke. I am his Leia.  We even shared a forbidden. 

A Kiss That Said Everything
The boy found his was into my heart and then, just like that, vanished.  No text messages, no calls, no nothing.  I was heart broken.  I figured maybe he had someone else all along and he just chose her.  It wasn’t meant to be.  So I tried to get over but I never really did.  I date someone else.  We break up. Rinse, repeat.

Days turn into months, which turn into a year.  I see him.  Text messages are exchanged of well wishes and birthdays.  I see him again.  I take a risk and tell him I’d like to have drinks again sometime, just to catch up.  To me, I was hoping this would be a moment of closure for the great disappearing acting and I could move on. 

Walking in front of him, he catches me off guard by grabbing my hand, turning me around and with his two hands, reached for my face and kissed me. My thoughts and breath disappeared. Time stood still. With a simple kiss straight from the heart, every possible emotion poured out. Regret. Vulnerability. Love. Fear. Apprehension. Happiness. Attraction. My whole body became alive with that kiss and for the first time in my life, I was rendered speechless.  

A kiss is a powerful action. It can say I’m sorry and I love you all at once.  It can bring tears to your face and make you smile.  We kiss people sometime just for the sexual rise to distract us from our loneliness or to see if that date is really worth it.  
 
A season kisser knows the difference between a frog, a prince and a farm boy. A kiss from the heart lasts a lifetime permanently etched into your memory.

Honorable Mentions
First stage kiss during the play 1984, his ears turned red every time we kissed.

The last time the photographer kissed me, he said he was sorry for cheating on me. He knew he lost me forever but somewhere in Barcelona, there is a beautiful photo of my back hanging in a bar he gave to the owner, who listened to him cry over me. 
#rumi #truelove #kiss #barcelona #canada

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