I’ve been searching for the daughter
Of the devil himself
I’ve been searching for an angel in white
I’ve been waiting for a woman who’s a little
Of both
And I can feel her but she’s nowhere
In sight – The Eagles, “One of The Nights.”
I suppose it’s playing it cool to say that “I’m not looking…” but I’ll readily admit, I’m not looking the other way either.
In that moment, where you take her face in your hands, look straight and true into her eyes, and move toward her ever so slowly.
the all consuming. all enveloping. all encompassing. feeling and emotion. closer. as your bottom lips meet. and gently. brush against one another’s. and exploring. lips parting. pressing into one another. gripping.
It’s the moment, for me, when all time stops. And I’m lost. In reverie. Everything else in the world goes away. The concerns and the calamities cease to exist; even the things you are most excited about in life. Because I’m lost for the moment. In the moment. In perfection.
I’m not talking about sex here. But, the CONNECTION. Sex is great. Well, sometimes. But that connection, where the feel of her face on your palm, your cheek against hers. Your lips on hers. And hers on yours. There is nothing better in the world. Period.
I can vividly remember EVERY ONE of those EXCEEDINGLY RARE occasions where I’ve had the PRIVELEGE of this experience.
My first kiss ever took place in the cul-de-sac at the end of Kinzie Street, where I grew up in Northridge. A bunch of us kids were sitting around playing spin-the-bottle. My turn and the bottle lands, pointing toward the very cute, pixie-ish, Alice Campbell, blonde hair so light-it-was-white. I kissed her. She said “yuck.” That was NOT one of those moments.
Dozens and dozens (and more dozens) of kisses later –from my 13th Birthday Party (where I literally must have made out with over 30 girls) to Northridge Skateland, and everywhere in between, failed to produce that feeling. That experience. Lisa Gordon was that close. Or as close at least as my over-romanticized 13-year old brain could conjure. Didn’t even get it from the 3, pretty “older” girls at Barry McKay’s Tennis Camp, who kept kissing my brother and me just to make the older boys jealous. Just didn’t get that feeling.
Many people who come from my era –as post-drug use-addled / early onset senile – as we are, have an uncanny recollection of EVERY Brady Bunch episode, ever. Like the one where Bobby Brady kissed Millicent and sees sky rockets.
The Summer when I was 15, Dad and Brendie took us all to Dana Point on vacation. There, Ken, Jeff and I met Janet and Belinda, seniors at Garden Grove High School (damn, the details are coming back!). They were 17, and exceptionally pretty; especially Janet. They must have been pretty darned bored to hang out with us young-uns the entire weekend, but were just so gracious. It seemed liked everyone was having a great time. On our final night there, Janet and I stood face-to-face in the parking lot. As we kissed, my entire body shook involuntarily. That was IT. If I could have torn myself away for a second to look up, which I wasn’t about to do, I just know I would have seen sky rockets.
There haven’t been many since, but I remember EACH. Perfectly. Vividly. The feel of their breath. Their scent. Where. When. How. Every detail. And as your time with “the one” come to an end, although you remain hopeful, you just don’t know if you will ever have the privilege of experience that again. Ever. And in that brief moment in time, if and when you do get that, all the yearning, all the longing, has been worth it.
Yeah, you can look. But you can’t force it.
It had been years for me. Until recently.
Blessedly, it still exists.
And with any luck, whatsoever, will again.