Kiss

You know that song, Copperline, by James Taylor? It's always been one of my favorites. It's about a time in a boy's life when things were simple and sweet. A time when you could go exploring for hours and come back with skinned knees and dirty fingernails and great stories to tell. A time when kissing someone for the first time stops your world in it's tracks. I played this song so much that the boy I used to babysit used to scream 'Jenny's song!' when he heard it with his mother.

I used some of the lyrics on the front cover of my first wedding album. I had married a sweetheart and this song reminded me of him and of us. The words, 'First Kiss, Ever I Took' was gold-embossed on the front of the black leather-bound book. It was my most sentimental time. As that marriage evolved into a sad tale, that innocent part of me started to harden up and I began to scoff at those kinds of lyrics. I remember hearing the opening note of the song on the radio and flipping the switch so fast I surprised myself. What had happened to me had happened to many of us, but this was my only love and I was a young, naive girl. I had married him. He had made a fool of me and I was convinced that the entire world knew it. I was angry that he took that innocence from me, and I couldn't even enjoy simple things like love songs or trips to Provincetown or baby showers without hating him.

So, time goes by as it has a way of doing, and my life moved on and up. That hardness is still there, but it's way down deep, underneath my layers of motherhood and marriage and friendship. I was watching television on Sunday night and saw that PBS was showcasing Mr. Taylor himself. I made a mental note to go back and check it out after I watched some of the 'Big Give' show. I forgot about it until I was channel-cruising at 10:30pm or so and I saw him. Darn it! I had missed most of it.

But, as fate would have it...I heard the opening note of my song. My Copperline. And it was a sweet as I had first remembered it. I sang every word, tears in my eyes. I thought of how good my life was, with my best guy's body next to me, keeping me warm. I smiled the most when I heard my favorite line...'First kiss, ever I took, like a page from a romance book. They sky opened and the earth shook, down on Copperline.'