The Kiss Abyss

 

When I was in the eighth grade, I was in a spelling bee. Finally, it came down to just me and Margaret Plunkett. We were told to report to the principal's office. The principal was a nun, Sr. Paschal. I was asked to spell "abyss" <= I spelled it incorrectly; Margaret spelled it right and won. (And from that day forward, I never forgot that word.)

Then, a few years later, out of the blue, I got a phone call. It was Margaret Plunkett. By then we were in separate, private high schools. She asked if I would be her date for the prom. Like an unfeeling ass, I impulsively turned her down—not because I didn't like her, though she wasn't really my type—but because I felt uncomfortable dancing around at that time in my life.

Right afterwards, I told my older sister about it and she said she felt sorry for that girl because she must have had to work up her courage to call me, only to be rejected. Hearing that made me feel bad. I should have called her back and told her I'd changed my mind. But I didn't.

As the years went by, I felt sorry that I had turned her down and never forgot that, just like I never forgot "abyss." And somehow those two incidents melded together...twice I fell down, way down into the abyss. But, I'll say this: I want to redeem that word and those bad feelings by adding a "kiss," to abyss, and then, the Good Lord willing, may I fall hopelessly into a beautiful new world of true love, wonder and goodness!

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Many, too many, take the whole theater, the drama presented for public consumption, much too seriously—while the media takes its neo-victimization sentimentalities way too far.

I'm more in the camp of Uhtred, the star of Netflix's, The Last Kingdom—a real man, a valiant man, a man's man—with a clear thinking head—a man who knows what to say and how to say it, and a man whose tender heart held some real dollhead hall-of-famers during the pursuit of his noble life's purpose. 

Embrace the kiss, the kiss abyss; and dare yourself to fall headlong in love!

The Depth of Fall (2014)  Artist: Dario Campanile