The Kiss – 1956

I love April.  It’s my favorite month of the year.  April is springtime and daffodils and leaves budding on trees.  It’s the world turning warmer and greener with the promise of rebirth.  April is the month of my birthday and the anniversary of my first kiss and even now, the thought of it still fills me with joy and makes my whole body smile in remembrance.

They say that the birthday that corresponds with the date of your birth had magical properties and carries with it special luck.  Judging from my own experience I’d have to agree.  April 14th is my birthday and the year that I was fourteen was special beyond my wildest dreams.  It was the year that I grew up, taking the first steps from childhood into a world of increasingly adult experiences and responsibilities.

It was a year of “firsts.”  First boy-girl party, first dance, first boyfriend.  First love.  First kiss.

His name was Ronny and he’d actually come into my life a few years earlier, when we were both eleven, and he’d helped rescue me from a swamp.

My sister Joan, our friend Yvette, and I had been out exploring, as was our habit, and had somehow managed to get ourselves stranded in a swamp.  There we stood, huddled together on a log, clutching at the surrounding bushes trying to maintain our balance and screaming bloody blue murder for help that we were afraid would never come.  We were all by ourselves out there in the wilds of Memorial Park in Manville.

Suddenly, like a scene from one of the romantic adventure movies that we liked so well, there appeared on the shore four knights in shining armor.  What they actually were were four guys in jeans who happened to be in the area, heard our screams, and came to investigate.  They found some old boards that they placed across the shallow water for us to walk on, and encouraged us to ease our grip on the shrubbery and step toward dry land.

“Our heroes,” we thought, playing the part of rescued damsels in distress as we thanked them.  Introductions were then made all around and we were pleased to discover that they were all from just across the river in Cumberland Hill.  There were the two red-headed brothers, Norman and Paul, a sandy-haired kid whose name I can’t recall, and Ronny  with the dark hair and the deep, dark eyes that made the breath catch in my throat.  My heart was pounding, my hands were shaking, and I knew in that moment that I would follow him anywhere.

I had that same reaction three years later when our paths crossed once again.  That time around he asked me to be his girl and I, of course, said yes.  The date was March 20.  The full account of that momentous occasion is written in my diary and sealed with a Cutex lipstick “Pink Dither” lip print.  Life couldn’t possibly get much better, I thought then, except that he hadn’t kissed me yet.

“What’s the problem?” I wondered.  Here I was approaching the ripe old age of fourteen and still unkissed.  Would I go to my grave with virgin lips?  Joan and Yvette were wondering the same thing.

Then came my birthday.  Ronny and I spent the evening as we did most others when he came to see me, hanging around the house with the rest of the family.  Joan and Yvette were also there, hinting broadly that the time was more than ripe for a meeting of the lips and that we were all impatiently awaiting THE KISS.  Naturally, I was mortified and embarrassed by their antics, but had similar thoughts running through my head.

When it was time for him to leave he asked me if I would walk him out.  Hand in hand we went down the stairs.  When we reached the landing he turned to me and said, “Back up one step.”  I’m just slightly over five feet tall and the top of my head didn’t even reach his nose, but when I stood on the bottom step we were eye to eye.

I can close my eyes, even now, and relive it all.  I can sense the cold of the hallway, the faint scent of his leather jacket, the unaccustomed feel of his arms around me, and the touch of his lips, gentle on mine.

The ground didn’t shake and the Earth didn’t shift on its axis, but I knew that I’d been kissed.  And although it was as soft as a prayer, shy and hesitant in its approach, it left its mark on me like an invisible brand, traces of which still remain.

You can only ever have one first kiss.  To share it with one’s first love is a rare bonus.  And though our lives eventually took different paths, and the promises of first love were to go unfulfilled, the first kiss has remained a treasured memory of an experience that was well worth the wait.