Sealed with a kiss

As I look at my "word for the day" page, the word is "buss"--meaning a kiss and since it is the day before Valentine's Day, rather that write about what is on my mind (I am frustrated with work details and want to hide under the covers for a few days or weeks), I will turn to my heart.

As I made that choice, the song "Long Lonely Summer" came to mind (hearkening back to my early junior high years--triggered by last night's viewing of the movie on the Beatles, "A Hard Day's Night"). Those were easy days of hanging out at my friend, Vicki Banwert's house and imagining ourselves bathed in sunshine while February's winter grey skies and cold temperatures kept us inside for many more weeks.

The songs sung by the Beatles in their early days were often silly love songs, as Paul McCartney would croon thirty years later in a solo album. "If I Fell in Love with you, would you promise to be true...?" sang John smiling into the microphone. "Yes", the girls in the balcony screamed back, tears cascading down their cheeks as they added the name of their favorite: "John, George, Paul, Ringo."

Now all those girls are in their sixties, assuming they are alive. And what do we croon now? To whom do we cry? Two Beatles are dead and, amazingly, Ringo has aged into a man almost as good looking as Paul was. Paul's not bad either now, except he dyes his hair and dates women the age of his daughters, while Ringo, after rehab, has settled into a life with a former James Bond startlet, Barbara Bach, also sober now in her fifties.

So, no matter what the dye bottle says, or the film celluloid creates with its magic, life passes quickly and we are sitting in our chairs watching history in Egypt shift in 18 days.

Does any of this connect to where I started---maybe so if I consider the plaintiveness of the song "so it's going to be a long, lonely summer, but, baby, I promise you this...." He bids her good-bye but their love is "sealed by a kiss." So we say good-bye in our lives to friends, family members, youth and yet, we can commit to their memories, we can "seal it with a kiss."

So, on this Valentine's Eve, whom can you kiss with that promise? A child, a lover, even the mirrored image of yourself can be the object of your affection and commitment. Take that step and, in the words of Jackie De Shannon (who opened the Beatles' first show I saw in Chicago, at the Stockyard Inn), "put a little love in your heart."