When a KISS is not a KISS

The Kiss (Lovers) was painted by the Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt between 1907 and 1908, the highpoint of his "Golden Period", when he painted a number of works in a similar gilded style. A perfect square, the canvas depicts a couple embracing, their bodies entwined in elaborate robes decorated in a style influenced by both linear constructs of the contemporary Art Nouveau style and the organic forms of the earlier Arts and Crafts movement. The work is composed of oil paint with applied layers of gold leaf, an aspect that gives it its strikingly modern, yet evocative appearance. The painting is now in the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere museum in the Belvedere palace, Vienna, and is widely considered a masterpiece of the early modern period. It is a symbol of Vienna Jugendstil—Viennese Art Nouveau—and is considered Klimt's most popular work.^[2]

Ahhhh, the kiss.  How fitting to begin meanderings about kissing for Valentines Day.  As a matter of fact, I do have a reproduction in my home and it is a favorite.  It sits outside our master bedroom, a subtle reminder of how wonderful the right kiss transcends love and validates "the one".

How you feel when you kiss ?

According to Psychology Today, one hypothesis is that the kiss has evolved as a mechanism for gathering information about potential sexual partners. A kiss brings us into close physical proximity with the other, close enough to smell and taste them. The face area is rich with glands secreting chemicals that carry genetic and immunological information. Our saliva carries hormonal messages. A person's breath, as well as the taste of their lips and the feel of their teeth, signals things about their health and hygiene, and thus their procreative suitability. 

Another hypothesis claims that the kiss functions primarily on the level of psychology, as a way to express and reinforce feelings of trust, closeness, and intimacy with another.

A kiss can seal the deal.

One thing I'm always thankful is having a position of trust with my girls.  As a mother, you have to guard the sacredness of having a relationship with your daughter in which she turns to you in moments of elation and devastation.  One can only hope that you can share her peak times and times of excitement.

In our home, it usually started with "I met a boy...." and would move on to the enrapture and description a daughter would go on to share in confidence while she would be exuberant with excitement and possibilities.

Imparting with excitement, as confidences go, I would be allowed into the secret world that women share when they are optimistic over the possibilities of meeting a great guy.

Of course, I would want to hear the details if she would feel comfortable sharing.  There is always a common thread in my line of questioning:

* how did they meet?

* was it a random meeting or among friends?

* did he treat her with respect?

* what did he do?

* were they drinking, at a club or a party?

* what did he do? (student, job, career?)

* where is he from? 

* how did his kiss make her feel?

Time does have a way of sorting out whether it was the joyfulness of being young, flirting, and being beautiful to the opposite sex.  Bias aside, all three of my girls are beautiful, unique to themselves, wired differently.  

Having external beauty and inner beauty is something I am always reinforcing to them.  I have always gone on about the fact that you can be beautiful on the outside, but your character is inner self is what exudes true beauty.  

They're all quite different and what is important to each is unique.  Yet with each one, I have asked:  "How do you feel when he kisses you?"  As though that is the secret to passion, life and longevity in relationships.

Movies have forever portrayed a swooning, toe curling kiss with fireworks to mean that you have found heaven with that connection.  It may not be as dramatic as all that.  

There is something to be said on whether it leaves one warm, safe, shared intimacy of that singular exchange.  Whether it holds the promise of discovery.  

I'm not talking about a saliva-sucking physical reaction of the moment that fools many unsuspecting ladies to think that the energy is a signal to yield all.

Nor does a friendly hug and peck depict anything other than just that.  More than a regular friend but not the deep connection that can be communicated by something as simple as a kiss.

A kiss can tell you whether he will guard your heart and not trample on it.  It can convey that he may be just as enraptured as you, while just as nervous of exposing his own heart and vulnerabilities.

A kiss is symbolic.

Many women who have been married for a while or for years can often reminisce about that first kiss:  how they felt, how they knew something was spectacularly special, that the exchange was deeply meaningful holding promise, some would say that it told them of a future with this person.

There are famous kisses that have withstood the test of time, even if the relationship was fleeting. The images rarely portray the feelings I've described or experts depict.  Nevertheless, they remain as timeless as the moment they were captured:

Image source:  New York Post

In August 1945, George Mendonsa was 22 years old, a Navy quartermaster on leave from the Pacific theater. He’d dropped out of school at 16 and worked with his dad, a commercial fisherman, in Rhode Island, enlisting in the Navy after the attack on Pearl Harbor: 

So on this joyous and unbelievable afternoon, George  grabbed the first nurse he saw, spun her around, dipped her and kissed her. 

The kiss did kind of bother someone else, though: the woman in the nurse’s uniform, Greta Zimmer, who wasn’t even a nurse. She was a 21-year-old dental assistant from Queens, who, having heard rumors about the end of the war, walked over to Times Square from her office on Lexington Avenue. George says he was so drunk, he doesn’t even remember the kiss. Greta says she’ll never forget it.

Greta Zimmer was born and raised in Austria, and in 1939, after much debate, her parents insisted that Greta and her two sisters flee to America. They were among the last refugees to make it out, and even on the afternoon of Aug. 14, as Greta read the illuminated news crawl declaring the end of the war, she had no idea where her parents were, or if they were even alive.

Charlie Chaplin and Edna Purviance in Behind the Scenes, 1916

Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in Red Dust, 1932

Clark Gabel and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind 1939

Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity 1953 

Disney's Lady and the Tramp, 1955

Breakfast at Tiffany's kiss with George Peppard and Audrey Hepburn, 1961

Great love story: Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton Cleopatra, 1963

John Lenon and Yoko Ono 1971

Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia ~ Star Wars 1977

John Travolta and Olivia Newton John in Grease 1978

Dirty Dancing starred Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swaze, 1987

Ghost with Demi Moore and Patric Swatze, 1990

Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet in The Titanic 1997

Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in The Notebook 2004

Madonna kisses Britney Spears during the 2003 MTV Video Awards

There you have it:  some famous and infamous kisses ~ some we may remember while others we may want to forget.  Most of the movies are favorites and come recommended as worth watching.

Regardless of who you may be kissing this Valentines:  make it memorable!