The Art of the Kiss

by Holly Schindler

  It could mean instead that they have discovered their favorite song. It could mean that every single time they bump into the same old melody, playing on the radio, it will be fate all over again. At once welcome and comforting. The opening riff will feel like coming home, whether they’ve heard it for the hundredth or the thousandth or the ten thousandth time.

  Which way it turns out will be entirely up to Ryan and Fayth.

  ~Photography Fact~

  Sharon Minyard’s

  Portrait Class

  2018

  Looking at a subject long enough—and deep enough—to take someone’s portrait can be uncomfortable. Embarrassing. Especially at first.

  But in order to push yourself, get the best shots, you’ll often wind up in uncomfortable situations. That’s just the photographer’s life.

  You must always get permission from your subject. Sign the right forms, get the right signatures. When you take their picture, highlight their most unique feature, their strongest attributes, just like we’ve discussed.

  Then I want you to get a second permission. One that doesn’t require any form. No signature on any dotted line.

  Ask them to allow you the pleasure of a story they would like to tell you about themselves. Don’t settle for some simple surface story. If they’re hesitant, push them. Ask questions. If you tap down deep enough, you’ll finally hit the well.

  I want you to listen. Look right at them as they tell you the details. Don’t interrupt once they get started. Just soak it all in.

  Once they’re finished, take a second picture. Be sure to take it while their story is still fresh, the words lingering in the air and in your mind.

  I used to think people just wanted to be seen. Of course they do. I still think that’s true. But as much as they want to be seen, they want to be heard.

  So take that second picture. Compare the two. See what difference a single little story can make in your own work.

  Excerpt from

  Michael Minyard’s

  introduction to

  ~The Art of the Kiss~

  A collection of photographs by Sharon Minyard,

  printed by Liu Publishing Services

  I am an old story man.

  I don’t care how the story is delivered—told by a friend, written down in a book, acted out on the big screen...

  Or captured by a photograph.

  I love it all.

  I know firsthand there’s one thing you can’t go without when you’re telling a story. It’s not a main character or a bad guy. It’s not a plot twist or a red herring.

  It’s a kiss.

  I don’t just mean the romantic kisses. That’s what we automatically think of when we see the word, but we express so much with that simple gesture. We kiss inanimate objects (perhaps casino dice) for luck. We kiss crying children to reassure them. We kiss the foreheads of friends we have not seen in years, telling them without a single word, I have missed you so much.

  Kisses speak. They are in no way one-size-fits-all. They depict all shades of love. Friendship. Or hope. Relief. Some are emotional, others habitual. Some sweet, others sensual. Some are perfunctory. Some are from your Great Aunt Edna, who smells like her three cats and pinches your cheeks before she’s done.

  Other kisses, though...They rock us to our core.

  Cinematic storytellers love to save such soul-rocking kisses for their big finale, orchestra swelling in the background. It’s an exclamation point. Lips meet. Hearts melt. Everything the characters ever wanted is now within their grasp. Love has been found. The dream has been achieved.

  Fade to black.

  We leave the movie theater smiling, almost feeling in our hearts as though that final kiss, the one that we just saw, is still taking place.

  It’s as if those kisses never end.

  But they do end. In real life, anyway.

  With so many different shades and types out there in the world, so many different stories they tell, it’s no wonder that my wife, Sharon, would have chosen to study kisses in this latest absorbing compilation of her work.

  But to what end? Studying something has to lead to some new insight. Questions must be asked and answered.

  So what has Sharon asked? What has she discovered?

  Quite simply, she has asked if cinematic-style, soul-rattling kisses—those brief moments of sheer perfection—come just once in a lifetime.

  While great storytellers love to use romantic kisses as their finale, in real life, they most often occur at the beginning of our love stories. In fact, the image that opens Sharon’s collection (also titled The Art of the Kiss) was taken at the beginning of us.

  It was our moment. Love has been found! It’s all we dreamed it could be!

  Sharon and I both know that in the aftermath of a life-changing kiss, we all face the same questions. We wonder: Is that it? Am I left with only the perfunctory? The Aunt Edna-style kisses? Now, am I the Aunt Edna, giving those kisses to my unwilling nieces and nephews?

  Does a perfect kiss truly only happen once?

  Sharon and I have been together—and The Art of the Kiss has hung on Sharon’s studio walls—for more years than I care to admit. We were half a century removed from our perfect moment when Sharon embarked on her study of kisses. She aimed to capture them all—every one of their shades—in an exploratory way. After all, we don’t understand the passionate without having also known the opposite, right? We have to have something to compare it to.

  And by studying these kisses, all of them, the familial and the friendly and the superficial, Sharon asks: Is there a path here, in all these kisses? Some way back to the earth-shattering, the momentous, the life-altering?

  Ultimately, though, while the photographs in this book took place during Sharon’s search, they aren’t entirely about us. Nor are they solely about the soldier returning home, or the mother and child at daycare, the teenage couple at the pool, or the older couple pictured on the Fairyland town square. Sharon’s images are about you. Whoever you are, holding this book. Quite simply, we often best understand our own stories when we see them reflected in someone else. We get the kind of distance that allows us to see ourselves clearly.

  You will see yourself in this book. You will remember your own Aunt Edna. Your first love. Your current love. Your highs. The comfort friends brought during your lows.

  When you reach this book’s end, you will see another image* that will tell you exactly what Sharon and I both think about whether perfect kisses come around a second time.

  Hopefully, it will bring a smile. If, instead, it brings a tear, it is our wish that it is a happy one. That your heart is simply spilling over.

  Trust what we have learned: perfect kisses exist. And they don’t happen once. Another perfect kiss is waiting for you. It’s right there on the opposite side of your own viewfinder, waiting to be developed.

  *All images in this book were taken by Sharon Minyard, with the exception of the closing photo of myself and Sharon, titled “Kiss Revisited: 50 Years Gold,” provided by Heather Scott, protégé and friend of Sharon Minyard.

  ~Sharon~

  Heather races to the studio door as I’m locking up for the day.

  “Am I too late?” she shouts through the glass.

  “Too late for what?” I ask, letting her inside.

  “I have another roll to develop,” she says, still panting.

  My eyes pivot to the shelf where I’ve placed my old camera—the original Nikon—on display. Heather has her own film cameras, an entire collection of them by now, late in the summer. Purchases funded, for the most part, by freelance work for Liu. “No way could I ever abandon digital completely, but there’s something so special about the film cameras,” she’s been telling me repeatedly. “All the work that goes into getting one image down on paper. I like the slowness of it. It’s almost like…” Her voice drifts off at this point, leaving me to fill in the blank. I choose: It’s almost like falling in love.

  Still no menti
on of her friend Amanda. There hasn’t been, not since the night at Murio’s. Not even when we’d developed a roll only to find a few shots of her old friend and her family, taken during what appeared to be a backyard cookout. Instead, Heather’d worn a kind of sad faraway look.

  Heather and Amanda might be broken beyond repair. I’ve come into her life, but I’m in no way a perfect replacement. Seems to me that that’s how matters of the heart always go. Along with each happiness comes a harsh twist.

  “Sorry, I was thinking you still had another class—”

  “Not tonight,” I say. The only night of the week I don’t.

  Traffic’s coming back. Not like it had, not exactly, back when the store was new. A different kind of traffic now. A different sort of interest. Maybe even a different kind of respect.

  But my name isn’t the only one circulating through Fairyland. So is Heather’s. Everyone agrees with me that no one’s ever had timing like hers—an ability to snap photos at the perfect moment, whether that moment takes place during a small-town high school ball game, or as a flock of birds launch into flight, or when a smile just begins to form. She’s getting work. Good work. The kind of work that generally leads to bigger and better jobs.

  The kind of work that means she’s also packing up the contents of her apartment. Getting ready for a big move.

  The Creature would soon belong to someone else.

  “I, ah,” Heather shrugs. “I took some pictures of Darth Billy,” she admits. “Figured his mom would like them. Kind of a parting gift, I guess.”

  I nod, attempting to fend off a knowing smile. “If you’d like to use the darkroom, you’re more than welcome.”

  Which reminds me I have something to give her. I’ve just reached into the cash register when she asks, “Sharon?”

  I turn to find that she’s leaning against the front counter, eyes swollen with hope, face flushed slightly like she knows what she’s about to ask might sound foolish. “Would you sit for me?”

  I laugh. Some old lady. And it’s not like she hasn’t taken a picture of me already. But I understand what she’s asking. She wants me to sit by myself. She wants me to know how she sees me. The woman who finally helped get her career off the ground. That single picture of hers in my Art of the Kiss collection is a big part of the reason her own phone is ringing.

  “Only if you’ll sit for me,” I say. I have a few things to show her too. The girl who helped me find my own revival of sorts. The girl who was brave enough to insist that the photo I took of Fayth and Ryan made it into our book.

  As far as I’m concerned, that took far more guts than any Cinderella-style waif has ever known.

  “You’ll have to do it fast,” I warn, wagging my thumb over my shoulder, toward a travel trailer parked at the curb.

  Heather realizes I’m telling her it belongs to me and Michael. “You guys are leaving?” she asks, worry splashing across her face.

  “In spurts. Nothing permanent. I’ve got the new classes starting up at the shop, and Michael—well, he’s got plenty he’s working on. Mostly day trips, the occasional week, maybe. We’re starting another book.”

  “What’s the focus this time?”

  “Rust.”

  Heather cocks her head slightly, her own laughter threatening to spill. Before she can ask if I’m teasing, I explain, “All kinds of rust. Most would probably say aging’s a sort of rust. Taking time away from an activity can make you rusty. Or things rust when there’s too much exposure to the elements. I figure we’ll take portraits, landscapes, whatever strikes us. And for every single picture, Michael will include some sort of written passage. A character sketch. A story, a poem. But between my photos and his words, we’ll get—”

  “—the full picture,” we both say in unison. And nod like we do sometimes when we find ourselves using the exact same phrase.

  “We’ll be coming back between the individual trips,” I assure Heather. “And for when we’re gone…” I reach back into the register for the extra set of keys I’d had made.

  She perks, relieved and happy, as she catches them. Gives me a quick half-shy kiss on the cheek.

  The thing is, I know a lot of people would look at Heather’s story and say, “Well, she didn’t get her happy ending, did she?”

  I say they haven’t been paying attention.

  All you have to see to know it’s her happy ending is the way she lunges for the stairs. The way it all fuels her, thrills her—the dilated eyes, the flush on the cheeks. Work is love. When you’re not punching a time clock. When it’s work of the soul. It’s love.

  The rest of it? The romantic love? The right person comes along when you’ve made room alongside your dream. I believe that, every bit as fanatically as Michael.

  Dreams come true.

  Before I reach for the door, I let my eyes bounce across some of my newer work. Frames that have landed on the wall near the center of the shop. I do love the picture of my hands and Michael’s, but I have so much left to say about where I’m going.

  The future is a picture I haven’t yet.

  Which is why I left a giant space in the center of the studio wall. I’ll hang it once I’ve snapped it.

  In the meantime, it feels good to have a masterpiece to chase.

  ~Michael~

  I see her coming up the sidewalk toward the  radio station as soon as I settle into the DJ’s chair. Here I am, ready to begin what has grown into a weekly show—all because of Fairyland listeners.

  And there she is. Sharon. My partner. Who’d insisted Liu was right; I needed to write the introduction to her new photography book—her collection of kisses.

  I’d loved banging that intro out on the keyboard. Loved that she’d enjoyed what I’d written even more.

  I love, too, that we’ve bought a trailer—because there are stories out there beyond the city limits of Fairyland. Stories that need to be captured in both words and images.

  I love that we’ve discovered a new life. And that this new life includes the best of the old times—playing off of each other, working together. Most of all, I love that we’ve rediscovered the magic we were afraid we’d lost.

  In our story, the old camera was, of course, a metaphor. A symbol of the once-in-a-lifetime, magical love we had. But that’s not some storytelling trick. In real life, we attach special meaning to so many things that surround us. An object is never really just an object. It’s sentimental. Or it’s a hindrance. Might be a reminder. A good luck charm.

  Sharon and I told you the camera’s story, going back and forth, as the two of us went about rediscovering the magic that was missing. Who was at fault? Who was to blame? We had once felt real, palpable magic—and what were we supposed to do when we didn’t anymore?

  Where had it gone? How did we get it back?

  We all have our own brand of magic to try and keep alive, don’t we? Even our no-longer-waif, Heather, who is becoming a better and better friend to Sharon as the days go by. Heather, who’s realizing that she has to stand on her own two feet. No secret shortcuts to achieving anyone’s dream. For her, Sharon’s camera is also a metaphor. No one can simply give you tools that instantly make your dreams come true—not like Cinderella’s fairy godmother.

  But maybe (oh, I’m an old fairy tale man—I love this possibility) we do leave a little dust of ourselves behind. Maybe when someone like Heather comes along, there really is a piece of you left to guide the new girl. Maybe pieces of our dreams, Sharon’s and mine, were still inside that camera. Maybe those dreams steered Heather toward her own.

  I touched magic once, I imagine Heather often tells herself, thinking of the first images she created with Sharon’s old Nikon. Will I touch it again?

  Isn’t that what everyone wants—to simply touch magic? Doesn’t magic mean something different to everyone?

  Sharon—and our past—certainly made a magical mark on me. A permanent one. A tattoo, but of emotion rather than ink.

  I ramble. I’m an old man. That
’s what we do.

  “Okay, Mr. Celebrity,” Tony tells me. “I’m getting ready to cue you up. You want me to tell everyone who you really are now?”

  He’s been asking me this every single time I show up at the station for another edition of my fairy tale vignettes.

  “Not yet,” I say, like always. If no one knows who I am, if I stay some shadowy mystery, isn’t it easier to write to me? Don’t they tell me more? I’d never keep this town from sharing their stories with me.

  Tony follows my gaze outside, where Sharon’s standing. He smiles and slaps my shoulder. “All right,” he says. “Up to you.”

  Outside, on the sidewalk, Sharon raises her camera.

  She takes my picture. Already, I know it will be a masterpiece.

  But then again, as far as I’m concerned, they all are.

  ~On Air~

  Happily ever after, dear listeners.

  That’s the question that comes to us this morning, courtesy of one Ms. Maryanne Whitaker, a fellow Fairyland resident. Do I believe, she asks, in happily ever afters?

  What a lovely phrase. Doesn’t it make you fill your lungs with a clean burst of air, then sigh with complete and utter satisfaction?

  Your goal has been met, the beautiful princess rescued (if she so desired rescuing), all obstacles thwarted.

  Love has won out in the end.

  Isn’t that what we really mean by this statement? Happily ever after. In the end, love has won.

  We need to believe in that three-word phrase.

  Better still: We should believe.

  Why? Because if it’s what we believe, don’t we behave differently? Don’t we lead with kindness and affection and good intentions? And in the end, isn’t that what really makes our world a beautiful place?

  Come to think of it, Maryanne, I don’t think we can ever truly say that a story comes to an end with a happily ever after. After all, the characters do continue on their journey once the curtain falls. Fairy tales don’t reward the main characters by killing them off.