Marisa's Laughter Page
Sept. 26, 2001
Is it REALLY in his kiss?
I love old music. I am a nostalgic kind of gal. I work in a busy imaging department in a hospital and we keep the radio on an oldies station all the time. We moved into a new facility a little over a year ago. In the old building, we listened to oldies because that seemed to fit the 1960's decor. We thought once we got to the new, modern building that we'd listen to new, modern music. As luck would have it, we could only pick up one radio station really well - you guessed it, OLDIES!
That was all right with me. My patients love oldies. As the baby boomers grow older, they end up visiting my department in increasing numbers. This is the music they grew up with! I get at least one compliment a day on our fine radio station, and very few complaints. I think our patients also enjoy seeing us technologists move to the groove and sing as we work. (I recall seeing movies where slaves and prisoners sang as they worked too. Hmmm. . .)
Every now and then I hear a song I've heard all my life, but for some reason or another, it's like hearing it for the very first time. For example, one day as I changed the sheets on the scan table, I heard ''Stop In the Name of Love'' by the Supremes. Now, my mom was a BIG Supremes fan when I was a kid and I knew most of their songs by heart even before I had to listen to oldies for eight hours a day. I don't remember NOT knowing the words to that song. That day, though, the bass line hit me like never before.
I suppose this comes from being married to a bassist too long.
Well, a few days ago I had a similar moment with ''The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)" by Betty Everett. (I could've sworn that was Martha and the Vandellas, but what do I know? That's why I have Billboard reference books.) Anyway, I was sitting in front of the computer, processing a heart scan, humming as I went, and that song came on. I was listening along to lyrics like ''Is it the way he acts? Oh, no, that's not the way. . .''
And suddenly it dawned on me. It's no wonder so many of us have marital problems when we have grown up believing that the measuring stick for the depth of a man's love is in his kiss.
Now, don't get me wrong, I LIKE this song. It's peppy, it's cute, it's a lot of fun to sing. It was well produced in its day. But the lyrics are a real BULL-loney sandwich!
If it were really in his kiss, I might've missed out on my husband altogether. First of all, I got tired of kissing before he ever came along. I can blame that on a guy I dated before my husband. That guy LOVED to kiss. My lips grew tired, and gradually, the rest of me did too. Fortunately for my husband, my lips recovered eventually. However, kissing wasn't all it was cracked up to be with him either. When we started dating, he smoked and I didn't. That made kissing a little less than I expected as well.
I'm glad didn't give up on the guy just because I didn't like kissing that much. Hugging has always ranked high on my list, and he gives great hugs!
My daughter got an old cookbook from my grandmother a few months ago. On the cover is a cute little picture of a woman kissing a man in front of the kitchen stove. The caption reads, ''Kissin' don't last. Cookin' do!'' In my opinion, truer words were never spoken. My husband and I have gained and lost and gained and lost and. . .well, we're somewhere in between now, probably closer to our highest adult weights than our lowest. Cookin' lasts longer than we'd like it to around here!
Cookin' was one of the first non-physical ways my husband expressed emotion toward me. We got married the week after I graduated from college. I started a full-time job the next week, while he was still looking for work. We lived ninety miles from our nearest relatives. When he finally did get a job, it was a part-time, evening shift gig as a disc jockey.
At first, I'd come home after a long day to find the apartment trashed and dinner uncooked. One day I said, ''You know, I don't mind cooking and cleaning, but if you're gonna be home all day long, the least you could do is pick up after yourself.'' I expected to get a cussing. Instead, I got dinner cooked for me the next night. Until we had our daughter three years later, we did most of our grocery shopping together and both of us took a turn at cooking. He doesn't do as much of the cooking as I do anymore, but he's still a better cook than I am.
Like most women, my marriage has had many moments of frustration, when I felt like my husband wasn't ''loving'' enough. As a musician, my husband spends a lot of evenings away from home rehearsing and playing with bands. He also spends quite a few early evenings sleeping while the rest of us are doing things together. I've often grumbled at him for not spending time doing more important things like meeting my needs. : ) I've mumbled about feeling left out and unwanted, when really, my husband's actions weren't related to his love for me at all. He was just making up for the sleep he lost playing until 2:00 am and then going to work at 7:30 the next morning!
I would counter that it really IS the way he acts. Oh, his kisses are fine, but they could never measure up to him cooking dinner or doing the laundry after I've had a long week at work. A kiss could never express the depth of emotion that he did when he took care of the kids after my hysterectomy several years ago. I could go on and on - bragging about how he picks up the kids at day care if I have to work late, taking them to soccer practice if I can't get there, etc. - but I'd run out of room. In fact, just this morning he folded a load of laundry so I could have lunch with our first-grader.
Now, I have a favor to ask you. Could you please not tell him how I feel about this? His head might swell so big that I'd have to cut it off to get him out the door to go to work in the morning. Also, I don't want him to get used to so much praise and adoration, because then he'll expect it all the time. You know how husbands can be. . .
This page was started on August 23, 2001
last updated July 23, 2002
Copyright 2001, Rissy's Treasures