The First Kiss

The faint smell of damp casually assaults my sinuses as the hard steps make their presence felt on my aching backside.

Neither of these things matter.

The aged stuffiness of the old Theatre in which we sit, and the noise of the kids running about, excitedly bouncing around on the threadbare carpets only add to the excitement of the moment; nothing can take my concentration away from the significance of what I was about to do.

Nothing.

I can hear the muffled sounds of singing. I know they are singing for me. Everything is about me. This moment will travel with me for the rest of my life, having set the wheels in motion for the rollercoaster that my soul will ride upon forever more.

We are in the middle of rehearsing one last time, for the big show that is due to open tomorrow night.

I’m nervous as hell, but really excited about being a part of this year’s Gang Show, a vaudeville style production, traditionally put on by kids from the local Cubs, Brownies and Guides, as well as my Scout troop. I’ve even got a couple of speaking parts and I can’t wait to get the show started.

I am 12, and I feel like I was born for the stage. I am one night away from stardom, and ready for the fame. I already dance at my Cousin’s dance school, so I felt at ease as soon as we began transferring our rehearsals to the actual stage. As long as nothing comes along and distracts me now, I know I will be a huge name in musicals one day.

What my acting career probably doesn’t need is a distraction such as sitting on these steps right now, holding Karen’s hand and looking into her eyes.

As the rehearsals progressed, I became increasingly friendly with Karen. I’d found myself wanting to spend more time hanging around with her than fighting and playing with my male friends, though I wasn’t really sure why. Then, earlier on today, she held my hand.

Right there in the Wings, as we waited for the next song to start.

And now we are wordlessly sitting on these hard damp stairs, backstage at the Newark Palace Theatre.

Suddenly, her face grew closer.

The hairs on the back of my neck tingle and stretch, as time adamantly refuses to tick by.

Her face grew closer.

My knee trembles as fear explodes through my nervous system.

Her face grew closer.

I stop breathing, I stop hearing. I am no longer here. The singing, the children’s chatter, and even the damp have all gone. I am nowhere.

Her face stops moving.

Somewhere, deep down in my genetic coding, I know it is all up to me from here, I am the man and the next move will have to come from me. I am going to have to man up and get on with it.

Right now.

Right here.

I am going to have to kiss a girl.

I pause as I recall the bag of pickled onion Monster Munch I ate earlier, but it is too late to worry about that now, because the fracture in time is about to heal itself. I can put it off no longer. I’ve learned all that I can possibly learn from my friends about kissing; now I’m going to have to put it all into practise.

My eyes close as my lips part and move, with a false confidence, toward hers.

The softness of her lips can only be bettered by their taste. I explode with the power of this brand new connection that links Karen’s heart to my own.

I am distracted. The world blinks out of focus for an eternity as the software in my brain rewrites itself. With its return, a new world order is born. My priorities have changed forever, because I have just learned something that will dominate my every thought for the rest of time.

I’ve finally worked out what girls are for.

Also posted at www.realbloggersunited.blogspot.com by me, because I can

Tom

Tom

Tom watched as the horizon bobbed up and down, as the world slowly drifted past. Life, he thought, didn’t get much better than this.

What more could a boy ever want than a day like today? Some days were bad, some good, but today? Well today was amazing.

Tiredness pulled on the boy’s eyelids, making them oh so heavy, but there was no way they were closing right now, not a chance.

There was someone to go and see; someone to cuddle.

As Tom rode his dad’s shoulders, he rested his chin upon the balding head and clung on tightly around his solid neck.

The strong shoulders felt safe, felt warm.

Earlier they had played football together, and Dad had let him win again – but not without some light fowls and blatant cheating, which always made Tom laugh until his ribs ached.

Tom’s dad had taken him to McDonalds for dinner – a rare treat, and he’d even allowed him pudding. Since when was anyone ever allowed pudding in McDonalds?

The man had just smiled warmly and sat there watching him eat.

Silent.

Thinking.

Worrying.

The greying man had done a lot of worrying recently.

But then the phone call came.

That brilliant, wonderful phone call.

It was Tom’s mum, calling from the hospital.

The results were in – she had beaten it!

The Cancer was gone!

Everything was new, everything was different. Dad jumped up, and with tears in his eyes gave the boy the biggest, strongest bear hug he’d ever had, before popping to the counter and ordering himself an apple pie.

This was a special occasion after all!

And now, as the light faded in the distance Tom sighed. They were on the way to get her; they were heading to the hospital to bring her home.

But not before Tom passed on that bear hug to his mum.

Some things were too good not to share.

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Also posted at www.Glenslife.com by me – Glen.

Marriage

“Don’t say that you love me…”

Sang legendary 70’s nut cases Fleetwood Mac.

“Just tell me that you want me.”

I haven’t done any way near enough drugs to be able to dissect the rest of that song for you as paracetamol is simply not strong enough to work out why they suddenly shout TUSK or why some marching band turns up.

But I do understand those two lines.

I’m not really experienced enough yet to be able to conclusively say what makes a marriage successful. I’ve only done a shade under 12 years, which theoretically isn’t even half way towards being able to claim any expertise. My parents and Jo’s parents are certainly in a position to give advice, each pairing lasting for more than 40 years. So I am not about to even try and dish out marital guidance, however I will tell you what I think and hope will work for me.

Share a sense of humour – This is vital and probably the most important of all aspects of a relationship to get right. Make sure you are with someone you can laugh with. We face many challenges over the years, many hardships, whether or not you have kids (sometimes especially if you don’t). When the chips are down and you are at your lowest ebbs, you need someone there who can make you smile again. Help you to see the path ahead is not so dark.

Feeling wanted – As the Mac said “wanting” your partner is somewhat important. I think it gets a little missed as folk think that as long as they say “I love you” every day then everything is fine. However all of us need to feel wanted now and again, to have someone need you is not the same. You can need someone to clean the house or cook your tea or mend the fence and cut the grass. We need to do the grocery shopping every week, but who gets excited about that? However going out shopping for something you want is whole different ball game. It doesn’t just have to be about sex, though that is probably the easiest way of showing it, sometimes you can be wanted simply for company – not just watching TV together but having a game of scrabble. I’m talking about you personally being wanted for a chat, for comfort and support, for someone to cry on, for someone to laugh with. Knowing that it is you that is wanted for something, rather than just ‘a person’ needed to help with the house or to babysit, makes you feel special. I think it is easy to forget this, to think that needing someone to do things and telling them ‘thanks’ and ‘I love you’ is the same, it isn’t. Let them know that you want them – not just somebody, but that one specific person.

Doing the things that are needed – Bearing in mind what I have just said, the fact is that we do have to do things that are needed too. Spot the things your partner needs, the every day dross of life that they are dealing with. It might not have to be you that will help with these problems, but if not who will? No one is perfect at this, no one can be, I for one am pretty terrible at it, but I try. Don’t sit back and wait for your partner to find someone else to help relieve the monotony of life.

Love – So with all that I’ve said, where does love fit in? In itself I don’t believe that it does, I see no important value in a long term relationship in simply saying “I love you” now and again (however, my wife does so you’d better believe I do it!), words can be said easily enough, meaning them is the key. What I do believe though, is that the love is found in the three points I’ve already covered. When you truly love someone, you want them, you need them and er you make them laugh. Ok not quite that last one, but loving someone so much that they still make you laugh after X years is kind of part of it. The respect that you show somebody when you are there for them, in any, and every way that you can manage, not because you need to, not because you ought to, but because you truly want to – is love.

So that’s my current theory, this theory will probably be different to my wife’s. This time next year I could be divorced and putting a link back to this post as a reference to all the things you should never do. For sure I’m talking about how I would like to behave; I’m not saying I’m great at it.

Hopefully, one day I’ll have been married long enough to call myself a success, but right now all I can say is that I’m happy and working at helping Jo be happy too. I only have another 32 years until I catch my parents up – crikey that is a long time, we are going to need a bigger TV.

Also on www.Glenslife.com

Survival

The wind whistled mercilessly as the bitter snow pelted into my face. Darkness engulfed my soul as I trudged onwards, every step more painful than the last. Only the one remaining ghost of an idea was keeping me going as my legs screamed in relentless agony. My heart pumped, forcing oxygen laden blood around my body. My head pounded in resonance with the drums of my heart, and my teeth chattered to the same tune as the freezing cold chill forced its way into my lungs and burned like fire.

How had things come to this? Why had my life taken this turn?

I had no idea.

I bellowed in desperation for relief, but no relief would come. We had to keep moving, too much depended upon it, lives would change and lives matter.Everything that I had learned over the years in the military was being tested to its limits. All that experience, all that knowledge, I needed it all right now. My survival depended on it.

I concentrated my mind back to the promise. It was only a flicker of an idea now, a ghost, but that tiniest glimmer of hope was all I had left and I needed it badly. I needed that dream now more than I’d ever needed anything – without it I would crumble, and I knew it.

One last time I shouted the dream out, it needed to be heard to make it real. If the dream had remained in my head it could have been lost forever so I shouted it out loud.

Jo turned back to me and sighed, “Ok yes, just this last shop and maybe Clarks on the high street, because they might have different shoes to the Clarks in the mall, and then we will stop and have some lunch!”

We had been shoe shopping for three hours.

Three long hours.

Three endless, repetitive, senseless decade long hours.

I’d long since lost count of how many shops we had been in, how many identical rows of shoes we had seen, Imelda Marcos would have given up and gone home an hour ago. How could we have been in so many places and seen so many shoes without one single purchase? This just cannot be natural can it?

I lowered my head; the dream of a quick rest in KFC was back, and it was no longer a ghost. It was real; this was going to happen soon, Jo had promised. Two, three maybe four more shops maximum and we would be able to have lunch. I forced my legs into action and ducked my chin into my coat to battle the cold. I could do this, I really could.

Finally, the perfect shoes were found!

On the way to the KFC, and carrying her prized treasure, which looked exactly the same as the pair of shoes that she had tried on in 6 different shops including the first, Jo casually mentioned that she could do with a hand bag to go with the shoes...


Glen Staples
Also posted on my blog – Glen’s Life

Introducing myself is never easy.

Hello.

I suppose I’d better do that 'thing', you know the 'thing', the 'bad thing'. Writing is easy (okay, writing well isn’t, but simply writing is), I can write about my life, I can write about my wife. I can write about my kids, I can write about… Damn, I can’t think of anything useful that rhymes with kids – lids? How often do I write about lids? I’ll consult with my Dr. Seuss thesaurus, and get back to you.

When it comes to writing about that 'thing' though, I draw a blank.

That 'thing' – is me, Glen Staples, the idiot still making sand castles, even though his children have run off to play with a kite.

Sadly then, I have to introduce myself and that involves getting my keyboard to write a bio (the mere mention of that word brings me out in a sweat).

Think back to when you were 18 and had your first car. It was an old style Mini, or something similar. You got it 4th hand and it was a wreck, but it was so much fun. Your mates would all pile in, and you would head off to the coast for the weekend with the cassette player (use Google or Wikipedia if you are too young to know what a cassette player is) blasting out Kiss or Bon Jovi (again Google will help). Another night would see you parking up in the woods with a girl whose name you had already forgotten, and then desperately trying to master the art of bra removal.

That’s not me – I don’t think it ever was.

I’m the 2nd hand Ford you had when you were 20. You had started having ‘relationships’, which could sometimes last months. This meant that you were officially ‘a couple’ and could therefore not go on the weekends to the coast with your mates. Also the excitement of the bra removal had gone, because it was no longer new and her name was on the green strip along the windscreen. However the car stuck by you through all this, got you where you wanted 8 times out of 10 and it had a CD player.

That’s me – not quite so much fun as you hope, but loyal, often dependable and almost, but not quite, modern.

I left home at 16 to join the Royal Navy, where I attempted to have ‘relationships’ with many women around the world, often at the same time and usually unsuccessfully. Eventually, I found a girl foolish enough to take me on, so I left the Navy and settled down to a more normal life.

Now I have two children, a wife and a London commuter’s life, all four of which give me plenty to write about, because there are funny things that you can see in almost all situations if you know how, and where to look.

Check these posts out if you want to see what I mean.

Survival

I live in a sit com

Training update #2

These can all be found on my blog http://www.glens-life.blogspot.com/.

Hopefully, now that I’ve got the introduction out of the way, I can relax and write some more for Writers Rising soon, meanwhile I need to get a cup of tea so that I can sit and read some more about you.

By the way…

I can write about my kids,
I can blink my eye lids,
I can eat the meat of the Krakka-Dakka-Zidz.

Good old Seuss never lets you down in a crisis.