Beautifully and romantically told. At first, I wondered how Jamie got to be the free spirit he was? Then, why and how it ended? I wanted it to go on. But then I thought “how perfect”. Anything else would only detract from that golden moment. Thank you.
I don’t remember mine. It probably resulted from a random stoppage on a living-room rug during a game of “spin-the-bottle”. I can picture the bottle. How sad.
Lovely to think back on this. Fifty-three years ago, when I was 16, my friend Bill stopped and kissed me as we were cutting through a suburban backyard on my walk home from school. We were in neither love nor lust - we were both too nerdy and too naive for such considerations. I remember the kiss as a soft gift that took me one step closer to adulthood. Lucky me -- Bill is still a friend today.
My first kiss that mattered was on NYE in 1993 in a dive bar in Pasadena along the Rose Parade route. I had just met my future husband, a PhD candidate from Cal Tech, and we quickly & awkwardly kissed when midnight arrived. I haven’t kissed another man since.
This essay certainly touches a nerve that takes me down a Memory Lane of many kisses from many men over the years. His name was Peter, a Brit, the first to show me that there is a finesse to kissing, a sensual give and take of lips and tongue. It was a slow-motion kiss, so unlike the lizard-like flicks of a boy's tongue finding its way into my mouth. I was nineteen years old, at the end of a freewheeling 1969 summer of Europe on five dollars a day with my best friend. It was a parting kiss. We would write letters to each other for a while. The letter writing would eventually come to an end but not the memory of that kiss, still with me at the ripe age of 76.
What a lovely piece, and thanks for the equally lovely prompt. I’m 71. The first kiss that mattered to me was the one I gave Ricky T, the boy who lived across the street from me. We were nine years old, and our families lived in a tract house suburb outside Detroit. Ricky and I were playing chase. I ran behind him across several backyards separated by hurricane (chain-link) fencing, caught up and tackled him, and planted my brief but determined, pre-announced kiss. Eww, said Ricky, wiping his face with the hem of his T-shirt. But he grabbed me then, and we rolled across a parched summer lawn wrestling and laughing. In a few years, as adolescence threatened, I would grow achingly self-conscious and lose all confidence about kissing. It was only then that the first kiss began to take hold as a memory of daring physicality when I could outrun boys, jump the fences, and take charge of my kisses. I hear Ricky grew up to be a kind-hearted person.
I had worried about this moment for years: what happened to two noses occupying the same space? And bad breath, where should arms go, and missing the target. But when the real thing happened it was so fast and furtive I had no time to think.
Mark spent summers at the cottage next to ours on Crystal Lake. He was a few years older, with glasses, sandy hair, and a wiry frame. I had a crush on him mostly because he was the only boy on our side of the lake and I was 15.
One hot afternoon after swimming, wet and breathless, we walked back along the wooded path between the two cabins, he turned and kissed me. No drum roll, no “May I”, no lead up whatsoever. The earth did not move nor even quiver. Odder still, we never talked about it. First time was the last time.
I’ve always felt gypped that my first kiss was so lacking in cupid’s arrows and singing angels. All the young adult books made me feel like an outlier. Was it me? Was it him? Or just an overblown myth that is one of the many in the long list under the heading: Rites of Passage.
I think it was him.
Because my second kiss— during Church Camp at night in the cool forest— was magical. Owls hooted, crickets roared, and the earth tilted perilously on its axis.
Great post! Brought back many memories, including those Valentine's Day bags and that old "black rotary dial phone in the kitchen." As the youngest of six children, I fully understood that at all times at least one person in my family could hear everything I said on that phone.
Still a neighborhood in San Diego, founded when teacher’s colleges were called “normal school.” Modest homes built for educators and such. Today, as nearly everything else in California, they may be purchased for a king’s ransom.
What I remember as my "first kiss" wasn't the first "real" kiss of pubescent love, it was a kiss of preschool innocence. It was 1972, I was four; he was five, the brother of my best friend. Julie & I were in the metal UFO-shaped climbing structure, where I loved to be, high above the playground, observing. It was hot. I remember how that hot metal smelled, even now. When their mom came to pick them up. Jimmy climbed up to retrieve Julie. As she clambered down, he stopped, said goodbye to me, and kissed me in the perfunctory way our parents kissed their goodbyes. For years, as his sister and I remained friends, it was a foregone conclusion that he & I would grow up and get married. It was understood that play dates were shared time. We would read comics together; in far, I have Jimmy to thank for my love of horror comics. This happy arrangement continued even after my family had moved across town, until we were pre-teens. Then one visit, I hadn't been over in several months and he suddenly had no interest in hanging out & clearly was over whatever had been between us. I was suddenly his sister's friend & not his. I was confused I not a little hurt.
The story has a little bit sadder ending. One day I called & their phone was disconnected. Letters came back marked "no longer at this address." The family just...disappeared. As an adult looking back, I have suspicions as to what happened, but all I can do is speculate.
It was the summer of 1988, when, thanks to the VCR, everyone was still enamored with Dirty Dancing, and Patrick Swayze was on our minds. I was a month away from turning 17, the classic ‘sweet 16, never been kissed’ girl, who’d always felt awkward in my own skin, too tall and skinny and nerdy for most of the boys in my hometown.
Our annual summer church camp that our grandmother took us all to–called Reunion–was almost over; that night, I was spending the night with my friend in her cabin, so I could hang out with her and her cousins, and get away from mine. The whole week, a boy named Eddie, who lived in town and wasn’t staying at Reunion, visited often. Back then, you could still be a part of the camp without spending the night—a ‘day commuter.’
Eddie had dark floppy hair (just like Patrick Swayze’s!) and deep blue eyes that twinkled when he was amused by my younger cousins’ antics. He was taller than me, a huge bonus, and he made me laugh.
After the campfire, before lights out, a bunch of us kids were hanging out on the bridge, next to the KP, eating our ice cream cones, goofing around. Eddie took my hand and pulled me towards Upper Lake, and shook his head and smiled when a few of the younger kids began to follow us. That smile, knowing and secretive, tugged at my belly, a thrill.
The moon hung low in the sky, its reflection on the surface of the lake an elongated shimmer. We stood looking at the lake for a while, talking softly about how it was the last night of Reunion, of how my grandmother had stood up for him earlier that day when he’d gotten chewed out for taking me off campgrounds for my first (of two, my whole life) motorcycle ride..
We talked about how school would start in a few weeks, and we’d be back to our different lives; the summer was ending for us both, and he said he wanted to keep in touch with me, to invite me to his town to watch him play football, to talk on the phone and write letters. It was easier to say these things in the dark, at the lake.
He turned to face me, tilted my chin, and wrapped his other arm around my waist, pulling me closer. His lips were soft; mine were trembling. As the kiss deepened, I started to shiver. I’d never experienced anything like it—it was absolutely lovely and terrifying, all at once.
He walked me over to my friend’s cabin; we didn’t talk any more. Everything had been said. He hugged me, and we went our separate ways.
We did keep in touch, a little bit—a few phone calls, and a letter or two that have been lost to time. He reached out once or twice when I was in college, but that was it. I remember him fondly, my Motorcycle Bad Boy with the soft side, my first kiss. I wonder where he is now.
I don’t want to google. I really don’t want to know.
Age 13 during a kissing game in Sue Perlin’s basement. I don’t know if the handsome blond boy Jan Berman is still with us, as we are now 68. But if you are, Jan…thank you.
Consuming curiosity, nervous impatience, excruciating ignorance, and dodging older male predators is (sadly) the first, immediate association I have with "first kiss."
Since meaningful is what matters, I offer a happier memory!
At 18 years old, I was fairly unconscious, pliable and married to a much older man.
At 22 I entered an acting school in L.A. He was walking by... Everything went quiet, he turned to me, the room blurred, I was instantly ignited, terrified, alive.
The first kiss was a tortured tease on stage working a scene together in acting class. The brush of his lips, the resonance of his voice, his beautiful young body pressed so hard into me. it was intoxicating, overwhelming, and so solidly right and true, like nothing ever had been before. I felt exposed, I thought everyone in that class knew the truth of my wild and reckless desire...
I knew he was the One. I divorced. I got him. I lost him. I found him again.
We are 3 years reunited, 2 years married, and at 66 years old, 44 years of being madly in love with this man and only this man.
PS
Thank you, Sari, for this wonderful resource. I have found authors to read, classes to take, and so much delightful inspiration the many fine contributors who have made me feel part of an empowering (if rather invisible) community. Thank you for making us able to see each other.
Beautifully and romantically told. At first, I wondered how Jamie got to be the free spirit he was? Then, why and how it ended? I wanted it to go on. But then I thought “how perfect”. Anything else would only detract from that golden moment. Thank you.
I don’t remember mine. It probably resulted from a random stoppage on a living-room rug during a game of “spin-the-bottle”. I can picture the bottle. How sad.
Marlon Brando Kissed Me -
I was at a party and he was there too.
At the end of the evening everyone was kissing and saying goodnight
When Marlon kissed me we both felt that spark as we gazed into each other's eyes
Then I woke up!
No other kiss ever came close!
Wow! (Was it a dream? Or did it really happen?)
Then I woke up!
Ah. I see. 🤪
Lovely to think back on this. Fifty-three years ago, when I was 16, my friend Bill stopped and kissed me as we were cutting through a suburban backyard on my walk home from school. We were in neither love nor lust - we were both too nerdy and too naive for such considerations. I remember the kiss as a soft gift that took me one step closer to adulthood. Lucky me -- Bill is still a friend today.
My first kiss that mattered was on NYE in 1993 in a dive bar in Pasadena along the Rose Parade route. I had just met my future husband, a PhD candidate from Cal Tech, and we quickly & awkwardly kissed when midnight arrived. I haven’t kissed another man since.
This essay certainly touches a nerve that takes me down a Memory Lane of many kisses from many men over the years. His name was Peter, a Brit, the first to show me that there is a finesse to kissing, a sensual give and take of lips and tongue. It was a slow-motion kiss, so unlike the lizard-like flicks of a boy's tongue finding its way into my mouth. I was nineteen years old, at the end of a freewheeling 1969 summer of Europe on five dollars a day with my best friend. It was a parting kiss. We would write letters to each other for a while. The letter writing would eventually come to an end but not the memory of that kiss, still with me at the ripe age of 76.
What a lovely piece, and thanks for the equally lovely prompt. I’m 71. The first kiss that mattered to me was the one I gave Ricky T, the boy who lived across the street from me. We were nine years old, and our families lived in a tract house suburb outside Detroit. Ricky and I were playing chase. I ran behind him across several backyards separated by hurricane (chain-link) fencing, caught up and tackled him, and planted my brief but determined, pre-announced kiss. Eww, said Ricky, wiping his face with the hem of his T-shirt. But he grabbed me then, and we rolled across a parched summer lawn wrestling and laughing. In a few years, as adolescence threatened, I would grow achingly self-conscious and lose all confidence about kissing. It was only then that the first kiss began to take hold as a memory of daring physicality when I could outrun boys, jump the fences, and take charge of my kisses. I hear Ricky grew up to be a kind-hearted person.
I had worried about this moment for years: what happened to two noses occupying the same space? And bad breath, where should arms go, and missing the target. But when the real thing happened it was so fast and furtive I had no time to think.
Mark spent summers at the cottage next to ours on Crystal Lake. He was a few years older, with glasses, sandy hair, and a wiry frame. I had a crush on him mostly because he was the only boy on our side of the lake and I was 15.
One hot afternoon after swimming, wet and breathless, we walked back along the wooded path between the two cabins, he turned and kissed me. No drum roll, no “May I”, no lead up whatsoever. The earth did not move nor even quiver. Odder still, we never talked about it. First time was the last time.
I’ve always felt gypped that my first kiss was so lacking in cupid’s arrows and singing angels. All the young adult books made me feel like an outlier. Was it me? Was it him? Or just an overblown myth that is one of the many in the long list under the heading: Rites of Passage.
I think it was him.
Because my second kiss— during Church Camp at night in the cool forest— was magical. Owls hooted, crickets roared, and the earth tilted perilously on its axis.
Thanks Andy.
Great post! Brought back many memories, including those Valentine's Day bags and that old "black rotary dial phone in the kitchen." As the youngest of six children, I fully understood that at all times at least one person in my family could hear everything I said on that phone.
Great writing prompt I’ll use later. New word for this Midwest, land bound gal-sabot. Normal Heights cracked me up.
Still a neighborhood in San Diego, founded when teacher’s colleges were called “normal school.” Modest homes built for educators and such. Today, as nearly everything else in California, they may be purchased for a king’s ransom.
What I remember as my "first kiss" wasn't the first "real" kiss of pubescent love, it was a kiss of preschool innocence. It was 1972, I was four; he was five, the brother of my best friend. Julie & I were in the metal UFO-shaped climbing structure, where I loved to be, high above the playground, observing. It was hot. I remember how that hot metal smelled, even now. When their mom came to pick them up. Jimmy climbed up to retrieve Julie. As she clambered down, he stopped, said goodbye to me, and kissed me in the perfunctory way our parents kissed their goodbyes. For years, as his sister and I remained friends, it was a foregone conclusion that he & I would grow up and get married. It was understood that play dates were shared time. We would read comics together; in far, I have Jimmy to thank for my love of horror comics. This happy arrangement continued even after my family had moved across town, until we were pre-teens. Then one visit, I hadn't been over in several months and he suddenly had no interest in hanging out & clearly was over whatever had been between us. I was suddenly his sister's friend & not his. I was confused I not a little hurt.
The story has a little bit sadder ending. One day I called & their phone was disconnected. Letters came back marked "no longer at this address." The family just...disappeared. As an adult looking back, I have suspicions as to what happened, but all I can do is speculate.
Oh I loved this from Mona!
It reminded me of an essay I'd written about a first moment too, entitled "Dear me, 16": https://substack.com/home/post/p-196439163
I hope you enjoy!
It was the summer of 1988, when, thanks to the VCR, everyone was still enamored with Dirty Dancing, and Patrick Swayze was on our minds. I was a month away from turning 17, the classic ‘sweet 16, never been kissed’ girl, who’d always felt awkward in my own skin, too tall and skinny and nerdy for most of the boys in my hometown.
Our annual summer church camp that our grandmother took us all to–called Reunion–was almost over; that night, I was spending the night with my friend in her cabin, so I could hang out with her and her cousins, and get away from mine. The whole week, a boy named Eddie, who lived in town and wasn’t staying at Reunion, visited often. Back then, you could still be a part of the camp without spending the night—a ‘day commuter.’
Eddie had dark floppy hair (just like Patrick Swayze’s!) and deep blue eyes that twinkled when he was amused by my younger cousins’ antics. He was taller than me, a huge bonus, and he made me laugh.
After the campfire, before lights out, a bunch of us kids were hanging out on the bridge, next to the KP, eating our ice cream cones, goofing around. Eddie took my hand and pulled me towards Upper Lake, and shook his head and smiled when a few of the younger kids began to follow us. That smile, knowing and secretive, tugged at my belly, a thrill.
The moon hung low in the sky, its reflection on the surface of the lake an elongated shimmer. We stood looking at the lake for a while, talking softly about how it was the last night of Reunion, of how my grandmother had stood up for him earlier that day when he’d gotten chewed out for taking me off campgrounds for my first (of two, my whole life) motorcycle ride..
We talked about how school would start in a few weeks, and we’d be back to our different lives; the summer was ending for us both, and he said he wanted to keep in touch with me, to invite me to his town to watch him play football, to talk on the phone and write letters. It was easier to say these things in the dark, at the lake.
He turned to face me, tilted my chin, and wrapped his other arm around my waist, pulling me closer. His lips were soft; mine were trembling. As the kiss deepened, I started to shiver. I’d never experienced anything like it—it was absolutely lovely and terrifying, all at once.
He walked me over to my friend’s cabin; we didn’t talk any more. Everything had been said. He hugged me, and we went our separate ways.
We did keep in touch, a little bit—a few phone calls, and a letter or two that have been lost to time. He reached out once or twice when I was in college, but that was it. I remember him fondly, my Motorcycle Bad Boy with the soft side, my first kiss. I wonder where he is now.
I don’t want to google. I really don’t want to know.
Oh, and I forgot to mention: I'm 54.
Age 13 during a kissing game in Sue Perlin’s basement. I don’t know if the handsome blond boy Jan Berman is still with us, as we are now 68. But if you are, Jan…thank you.
Consuming curiosity, nervous impatience, excruciating ignorance, and dodging older male predators is (sadly) the first, immediate association I have with "first kiss."
Since meaningful is what matters, I offer a happier memory!
At 18 years old, I was fairly unconscious, pliable and married to a much older man.
At 22 I entered an acting school in L.A. He was walking by... Everything went quiet, he turned to me, the room blurred, I was instantly ignited, terrified, alive.
The first kiss was a tortured tease on stage working a scene together in acting class. The brush of his lips, the resonance of his voice, his beautiful young body pressed so hard into me. it was intoxicating, overwhelming, and so solidly right and true, like nothing ever had been before. I felt exposed, I thought everyone in that class knew the truth of my wild and reckless desire...
I knew he was the One. I divorced. I got him. I lost him. I found him again.
We are 3 years reunited, 2 years married, and at 66 years old, 44 years of being madly in love with this man and only this man.
PS
Thank you, Sari, for this wonderful resource. I have found authors to read, classes to take, and so much delightful inspiration the many fine contributors who have made me feel part of an empowering (if rather invisible) community. Thank you for making us able to see each other.
I love this prompt! I'm going to write about my first memorable kiss this weekend. ❤️❤️
My first crush kissed me when I was fifteen and he was 19. I was so proud! It didn't go anywhere.
My first boyfriend and I, two years later, learned to kiss together under a huge statue on the Chicago lakefront. We loved each other.