The Kiss

Andy meets me at the Calgary airport. He tosses my bags into the back of his cherry red pickup and we head to Canmore where he lives. I lived in these mountains for 20 years. And today my two kids are with their dad in Victoria, and I’ve got three days to hang out with my lover in the mountain town I left two years ago.

Andy and I are good already after only three months (and that time we spent as friends 11 years ago) together. This getaway weekend is just what we need to nourish our nascent relationship. Andy puts on some tunes and we sing along with Frank Sinatra as the city recedes and we head west.

As the prairie succumbs to the big rock, I remember the decade I spent with the father of my kids in these same mountains. This particular piece of life – in a life full of meaning – was a potent chunk of life.

I finally learned how to stop running. I practiced commitment. Though we didn’t marry, I pledged to stay with it, no matter what. Which was good because we had children and if you don’t think that isn’t going to take you to the places that scare you, you’re not paying attention! We opened to the entry of two new humans who shared our DNA, we surrendered to the process of life as something not entirely (ha!) controllable, and we became aware of karmic imprints and entrenched neural patterning.

I see a familiar crest of hill, or something as equally innocuous, and -- why do I cry? Loss? Grief for what was -- all those hopes and dreams that didn’t come true? Or maybe it’s gratitude for the fantastic stuff that’s starting now? The overwhelming sense of trust I feel for the intangible yet impossibly powerful process of life? The opening and ripening of potential. The flipside of karma.

Tears slide so slippery and pretty over the crest of my cheek as we come down off Scott Hill and the mountains engulf us.

I turn my face to the right and look at the shapes of earth I remember from countless drives to the city and back home again. The cows and horses in the grassy fields are a reminder of how Rio learned to say “Moo Moo” and “Neigh Neigh” for their names. A train snakes its way through the valley, a Res dog lopes, head down, the aspens are so brand new, there's still snow in the heights. I see this place and that place that I know like the back of my hand, the silhouetted shape of a tuft of trees at the top of a rise.

I’m quiet as I cry, no hiccupping sobs, just measured breath and a lovely release of emotion as we move happily forward.

Andy blinks right and pulls off the highway, onto a side road. Where are we? Is this another way to get to Canmore? A back route I didn’t know about? I’m happy to leave the driving to him. I sit back.

He pulls over to the left shoulder of the side road, stops, shifts into first, and turns the engine off. He undoes his seatbelt. I watch him as he leans toward me. He removes my sunglasses and takes my face in his hands. Our eyes lock. In yoga this is called Trataka, a practice of gazing to develop concentration. When practiced eyes to eyes, it can bring two people into union, and teaches us that all human beings are one, we are not separate.

What exactly does that yoga babble mean? Well, we humans all share the human experience. Her pain is the same as mine, his happiness is mine too. My wanting is the same as the wanting of every other human soul. Who doesn’t ache to love, and to be loved? To be needed and to make meaning of our lives?

Andy’s hands are warm on my skin, his thumbs rest on my cheekbones, touch traces of my tears. He is quiet. There’s this elastic moment where the past meets the present and morphs into the future, and an entire mountain range of new possibilities thrusts up out of the earth.

We both track that, shake our heads in amazement, then smile to recognize where we are, what we have. Our love is new and already so strong, a hardy, practical force coloured with the rainbow of romance, imbued with confidence, and shot through with enough lust to make my heart beat faster as he pulls my face toward his.

Ah, he pulled off the highway to kiss me. He imagined this a few minutes ago, and here we are, in that gorgeous, thick, unwritten moment before the kiss. I feel longing and fulfillment. Desire and confidence. Welcome and excitement. A potent surge of energy erupts in the base of my body and gushes up through my sex, painting all of me with ecstatic bliss.

Dammit, get over here and kiss me already! Press your mouth to mine and in that meeting of our bodies we explore and communicate and share and release and rage and sing and laugh and ache and dance. In this union there is a promise of life so fine, the reward for good work, and the assurance of always more.

By the end of it we’re laughing and gasping, reaching for each other, pulling and grabbing. We want to get even closer, trying to prove that we are one.

Then we come apart, laugh, shake our heads, laugh again. He puts his seatbelt on, starts the truck, and drives onto the highway. We head toward his home, to a weekend together. Into our new life, whatever that may be, and wherever it will take us.

This kiss neither promised nor gave security, it was rather a dedication of themselves in comradeship to the danger and pain of living. And living is another word for creation; they knew that for one short moment they clung to each other; creation by body and mind and soul for a future of humanity whose nature cannot even be guessed at.
Elizabeth Goudge: Green Dolphin Street