Standing in the creek with my shoes on
We were ten years old.
His name was Stuart.
My parents, being of the hippy denomination, took us most years to an annual May Day celebration. It involved pot luck lunch, themed quests through the woods (Alice in Wonderland one year, with my aunt dressed as one of the card guards), and, yes, a dance around the May Pole.
There was also some sort of parade, lead by the May King and Queen. All the girls yearned for the part of May Queen, though the boys really couldn't care less. This honour was bestowed merely by selecting the right card.
And, when I was 10, it was my lucky year. As May Queen, I wore a crown of flowers, and led the parade with Stuart, the May King, one of only three boys who volunteered for the task.
After the mini-parade, him and I take a walk through the woods. We stray from the path, and decide to walk through a creek with our shoes on.
As we're sloshing through the creek, he turns to me and says "I like you". He then pauses, and says "Like girl-boy like."
I hesitate. "I like you, too."
He then spits out the kicker: "I want to kiss you."
I stand there, motionless, water rushing by my feet. For some reason, with my heart pounding, I agree.
And, standing in that creek, we count to three, and then quickly press our lips together.
He, being the more experienced one and having kissed a girl before, declares that we should kiss again for longer. We again do the count down, and hold our mouths together for a count of six.
We then decide we should probably be getting back to the party, and emerge from the forest, with no one the wiser, not then not for years to come. This was my darkest untold secret for more than a year.
I never did see Stuart again. I couldn't even tell you what he looked like.
However, I think I will always remember the feeling of wet socks between my toes.
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19 comments:
That is absolutely beautiful. :o)
Did you wipe your lips afterwards?
Oh my! I remember my first kiss too... I think his name was Marlo! Behind the bowling alley down the street of my house. Not nearly as surreal and wonderful as your experience.
Awwwww!!!
That was so adorable!
Man, my first kiss involved an elementary school game of "chase the boys and kiss them." Hahaha.
So well told.
What I really want to know is what new, darker secret came a long a year later?
That was sweet - and you've got everyone remembering their first kiss.
very sweet story - can't wait to hear the next one!
I'm going to be totally different...
ewwwww! Totally gross! I hated girls when I was ten! I wanted to put ants on them.
(Ok, I confess, very sweet story, but don't tell anyone I said that!)
That is so cute! (Not in a condescending way though.)
I'm going to have a kiss countdown too.
Mine was at camp. Julian. Ah, Julian, who's now a friendster friend.
I loved reading this because it absolutely pure and amazing. Though looking back on it, my first kiss wasn't so storybookesque. That awkward sucking sound gets me to this day. : P
That was a great story.
You know, I can't even remember my first kiss. I guess it just wasn't that great. And there were no may poles involved.
Heh!
This was sweet.
Yeah, I'm with Jocelyn.
My first kiss was when I was 16 in Italy with a 23 year old. It was sweet until he started to try moving my hands down south ... let's just say it ended soon after.
Totally irrelevant to this post but I've got to tell you - that "sweetie" did me in.
Thanks for caring.
Glad you all liked the story. The memory came back to me rather randomly the other day, and I realized what an epic first kiss I had :).
(Although not nearly as epic as Airam's- ew!)
I'm also pleased if I got everyone reminscing.
Though, I'm afraid, there was no new deep dark secret replacing it for several more years (as the boys stayed away from me for a while after!), but rather I told my best friend about a year afterwards-- after she convinced that she, too, had done such scandalous things!
ahhhhhhhhh..... how sweet!
I was eight for my first kiss. No, I'm not a sex perv... It was with my neighbor Wendy, when I lived in Port Huron, Michigan. She was a year older than me and had the most distracting entrancing red hair I've ever seen.
That phallic May Pole has been seen before in your posts... Or was it later? But still before. Funny how time works, we march forward constantly, yet here I am, lagging behind the flow...
After reading that you were a May Queen, I kept hearing Stairway to Heaven in my head as I read the rest of the post...
If there's a bustle in your hedge row
don't be alarmed now,
it's just a spring-clean
for the May queen
And yeah, the car catching fire did suck. I was on my way to see my folks when it happened on the interstate highway, traveling about eighty mph (probably 140 or something ridiculous in kph). Fire lit up the night, and people pulled up next to me, pointing at me and trying to get me to roll down my window, as though I was oblivious to the orange glow on the wet road all around me and the smell of burning oil and the smoke trails behind my chugging car.
The update is that it might only be a plugged up catalytic converter. I hope so... that's relatively inexpensive to fix, compared to a rebuilt engine, anyway.
Yeah, no fires to great me, much to my chagrin. I live in a crappy apartment, the only fires that happen around here are bad news, indeed. But I do have warm friends who greet me well over the inet. That's a blessing.
And I've been relegated to taking the bus... fun fun, as you know. But it's not so bad.
I just miss my own mobility. And there I was beginning to entertain thoughts of getting a motorcycle in the springtime. That would be fun. Then I could take off on some real adventures and do so very cheaply, since gas is not a big thing for one of them. I'd just load up the saddlebags with clothes, and carry a water proof sleeping bag. A decent cellphone with a nationwide plan and finally step into the new millennium with an Ipod, and I'd be all set.
If it's only a catalytic converter, I'll still do that.
Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble on! Much respect and bloggie love to you.
And have a great new year.
peace out.
by the way, I wrote an exquisite poem over at the butterfly bar regarding my first kiss...
Thanks for the inspiration, my friend.
You're a true gem.
Ah the counting.
I might try that on my next date.
This was beautiful and I LOVED your retelling. Squishy socks, but not lips, eh? Shows how much he had to learn!
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he figured it out by now - since this was a number of years ago and he may have had more kissing partners. :)
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