Every Epic Love Story, Chapter Four; The First Kiss

My “move”. Ha!

I knew I had to do something. Seeing her around and not saying anything was driving me crazy. Talking to her without saying what I was thinking was driving me nuts.

Seeing her fence did something to me. Her grace and energy were beautiful. I was in love. I mean, it’s hard to look back and matter-of-factly evaluate how I really felt then. I was kid, I had no real idea what love means, the commitment, the work. At best, all I could have really been feeling then was a hint, the breezy echo of a future wind.

I knew so little about her. But things I did know, I knew very well.

She was smart. Funny. Gorgeous.

I knew most of all, that I wanted to know more of her.

Wednesday, March 26th, 1986. Kids, a history lesson. Back in the ‘80s, “home” computers were rare at best. So computer labs at universities were where students went to do their word processing. Back in the old days, rows of desks where filled with enormous desktop computers, rows of some original Macintosh computers (ah, the happy little sad-bomb screens and carrying a paper clip to eject 3 1/2 inch disks), and a few networked laser printers the size of mini-fridges. Those rooms, with the noise, the clutter of technology, must look today, to you, like the old pictures of the ENIAC machine looks to me . . .

I knew Jennilyn used a room in the Library to work on her papers, and had been paying slavish enough attention to her work-load this semester to know where she’d be Wednesday evening. Well, that’s not entirely true. I had already gone by the Leading Edge office, the annex building where she was doing ceramics. The library was the last place I had to look for her.

I found her there. She was in line, waiting to pay for some copies.

Mr. Suave here walked right up behind her and whispered something compelling, something romantic and clear.

“Uh, hey, so . . . I see you fixed your horseshoe?”

That noise? The thud you just heard? That’s the sound of my awesomeness hitting the ground like a lead balloon.

*sigh*

Remember in chapter 3, I mentioned my reference to the horseshoe on her porch? Yeah. Sly allusions to previous anonymous and nearly inscrutable secret notes is not the way to “make your move”.

I look back, and am so certain now about what I was feeling then. I wish I had possessed the basic sense to just be honest. I mean really; how hard is it to just . . . be honest? I wonder if our friends could see what was happening. My roommate knew I had a concussioned-dazed-crush on Jenni.

So I am amused now when I see young men stumbling through these opening conversations. My young friends, I feel your pain. Trust me, you just need to open your mouth and talk.

My great dumb-founding bon mot about horseshoes. Jennilyn turned around, and looked right by me, certain that it was someone else. I was far too young; couldn’t be me leaving notes.

So, I can’t believe that she took me seriously. I asked if I could walk her home. She assented.

I remember little else about that evening. We walked to her house. It was late.

Remember, this was college us, not middle-aged us. So being up to 10, 11pm at night was no big deal. We got to Jenni’s house around midnight. She could tell I was goofy for her. She offered me . . . a bowl of cereal and some grapefruit juice. We talked, I’m sure.

By the time we were saying good-night, it was later, closer to 1am. She took me home in her roommate’s truck.

I can’t remember exactly when, but at some point, gravity took over. Inertia, inevitability. We were coasting downhill. See, there’s an important lesson in this. There are choices we make, places we put ourselves, and if we persist long enough, the circumstance escapes our control. We can be attentive, we can forecast the routes that gravity will pull us down once our brakes are overwhelmed, but past a certain point, we have committed ourselves to the course by continuing in that direction. Good thing if we are going in a good direction. Disastrous if we are not.

I had been in love with Jenni, my limited, teen-aged heart’s capacity to love, for months. If I could have stepped outside and watched what was happening, I would have seen it was coming, and welcomed it.

Anxious to stretch out the evening, I invited Jenni to walk for a bit. We ambled across the street, circled the parking lot at The Pie, wandered through the empty lot of the college annex next door.

I stopped, turned to her, reached out and took her hands with mine. She raised my right hand to her face and kissed one of my fingers. I put my hands behind her head and I kissed her. I cannot recall that kiss without the decades of kissing since then coloring my memory somewhat. I know it was exciting, thrilling, chaste, and yearning, all at once.

We kissed, we talked, we kissed some more. We promised to see each other the next day. It occurs to me now, with my years of understanding how people relate to each other, there were a lot of things I didn’t know. What she expected (serious commitment? light-hearted dating? me going on a mission? was she only interested in the NCMO?). There are a lot of ways we expect things of each other, of our relationships. I would find, in about 15 hours, that I still had a lot to learn about being in love.

Look backwards at chapter 3.

Or see what happens "tomorrow" in chapter 5.