On NPR this morning, they interviewed the author of a book on the history kissing. 90% of the world kisses the way we, Americans, have come to define it -- the use of the lips against the skin of someone else...perhaps their lips or their cheek or the top of their head. Some cultures, though, consider "the exchanging of saliva" as dirty, our mouths afilled with bacteria, transmitters of viruses. Other cultures, especially in Africa, see the mouth as the portal to the soul and kissing is seen as inviting death or worse, the possible loss of the soul.
With the current flu virus making its way through our school, we've spent class time and community meeting time discussing appropriate protocol for sneezing and coughing. We've stressed again and again the importance of washing hands with warm water and soap, vigorously scrubbing while singing Happy Birthday. We've even banned the sharing of food, which above all has been the most difficult burden our students have had to bear.
Kissing, of course, is not a problem. As an all-girls' school, we have had our share of "dating" among the students (girls holding hands or cuddling in the hallways), but no more than a co-ed school and no one has been bold enough to kiss, at least not in public.
But this morning's story got me thinking -- will we ever get to the point where kissing is banned, seen as the most dangerous transmitter of deadly viruses, viruses that adapt and become resistant to medical advancements or the latest version of antibiotics?
Kissing doesn't rank up there with the likes of clean air, water, food, or adequate shelter, but its possible loss feels even more dire than the threats we'll face from global warming, terrorism, or the depletion of our fresh water supplies around the world. Certainly no one is proposing the end of kissing, but with the recent proposal to ban cell phone and iPod use in of all places the streets of New York city, I suppose anything is possible.
It's silly to speculate about something that no one is even considering, but I find that in this day and age I am considering my choices every minute of every week. I suppose I have Al Gore to thank for that. While I've enjoyed the recent spat of snow and chilly weather as well as the equally odd timing of our recent spring-like temperatures, there's an omnious feeling that comes from wearing shorts on my morning walk in the middle of February. When I run the faucet waiting for the water to get hot enough to wash the pots and pans that will not do well in the dishwasher, I worry about my overconsumption of such a valuable resource. It's not like I'm obsessed by my contributions to environmental degradation, but my concern is always there, like a haunting melody I can't seem to shake.
So to consider the loss of kissing is just another refrain and for me, the saddest verses of all. Kissing allows us to get lost. It's Zen. During my yoga sessions I concentrate on my breathing trying to block out my worries about the Iraq war or the papers I have yet to grade or the friend who has been recently diagnosed with breast cancer. I try to be "present" as the instructor on the yoga video asks of me.
This is something I can do when kissing. I can be present. I can shield my mind from the past and stop projecting my worries onto a future I cannot predict or control. I can just feel the softness or the passion or warmth or the longing. I can be in the moment. My breathing is exactly what the yogi asks of me -- steady, deep, and life-giving.
If Rod Serling were alive today, I bet he could write this amazing episode for the Twilight Zone on the End of Kissing. It would star Kim Novak as a librarian. She'd live in a time of no kissing, a time when all kissing had been forgotten. Until one day, while searching through a stack of dusty manuscripts she'd see this picture, faded and yellowed.
Only through the camera angle or the music or the movement of Ms. Novak's eyes would the viewer realize the dangerous excitement she'd feel, electric and pulsating. She'd search the ancient stacks for explanations, supportive evidence that such activity was not an anomaly. Until one day, while being courted by Robert Young or Robert Mitchum, she'd boldly press her lips on his, igniting an underground revival in kissing.
Of course, it wouldn't be the Twilight Zone unless there was a twist and the twist would be that Kim or one of the Roberts would fall ill, shaking and sweating in a sterile hospital where doctors looked on stymied by the tenacity of the virus, its unknown origin, and the rapidity with which the hospital filled with the network of closted kissers. And in this age of fear, the government would blame terrorists for introducing a deadly virus through something so personal and passionate. Passion would be outlawed, of course, controlled by the state and kissing, once simply banned, would now be punished by death. The military would invade homes, place the latest spy technology in the most unlikely of places. And while Kim Novak sweated her final breaths in the hospital, Rod Serling's throaty voiceover would surmise...
A kiss is but a kiss, but in an age of fear, when our doubts control our once rational minds, a kiss can become the deadliest symbol of our intolerance. "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs, and explosions, and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, ideas, predjudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, predjudices can kill and suspicion can destroy. A thoughtless, freightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own for the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is, these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.” (actual Rod Serling quote)
1 comment:
Hi-- hope you are doing fine.
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