JusJoJan: The Spell was in His Smell

1972

JoAnna’s brain kept nagging her. Be careful! People are on their best behavior when you first meet them.

But this isn’t the first time we’ve met him, said her heart.

A lot can change in 39 years. Yeah, he was a good guy when you dated in high school, but who knows what he might really be like now. For all we know, he could be a —-

“Don’t go there,” JoAnna intervened before her brain’s imagination ran down the dark road. “Let’s just wait and see. What we do know is that he has been working as a firefighter and EMT for the past 15 years. That should at least count for something. I’m taking it slow.”

I’ve heard that before, said her brain.

Shush! said her heart. Last night was wonderful. He was a perfect gentleman. Our second first date…. And that kiss….. our second first kiss…. it was divine. This was meant to be. You know, there’s the timing. And we’ve had all those phone conversations. He drove all the way down here from Connecticut!

Well, just remember, JoAnna, said her brain, “Follow your heart, but take your brain with you.” The brain really should be in charge anyway. You know how much trouble the heart has gotten you in to. Not to mention the body….

“Enough!” JoAnna said. “I’ve got to get some sleep! Big day tomorrow.”

On their second second date, David and JoAnna went to the beach to watch the summer sunset. She leaned back against his strong chest and felt the comfortable security of his well-muscled arms wrapped around her. She kept both her heart and brain quiet as they watched the golden light spread across the horizon and reflect on the intracoastal waterway. David continued to be a perfect gentleman which the brain and heart both liked, though the body was slightly annoyed.

Sunday was their last day together before David returned to Connecticut. After church, they sat on the couch in JoAnna’s living room. They talked very little and mostly absorbed the weekend and each other’s presence. JoAnna placed her head on his shoulder then lifted her nose to his neck. She inhaled deeply. The result was intoxicating.

“You smell good,” She murmured. “Are you wearing any cologne or anything?”

“No. I guess it’s just me.”

She lifted his hand and smelled the inside of his wrist. It smelled good, too, but not as good as his neck. Her nose lingered just below his ear as she continued to breath deeply falling under the spell of his pheromones. It started to dawn on her. He had been her first boyfriend back in 1972. His smell had been imprinted on her brain.

This could be dangerous, whispered her brain.

Just shut up and enjoy it, her heart said dreamily.

We have to stick together, said her brain. Don’t go anywhere without me.

Yeah, whatever.

___

If you’d like to read more about the romance of JoAnna and David and what it took for them to find each other after 39 years, read Trust the Timing, A Memoir of Finding Love Again, or the short version, From Loneliness to Love. Just click on the books in the right sidebar above.

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Today’s Just Jot January prompt was the word, “spell.” For more jottings and info, visit our host, Linda Hill at:

#JusJoJan prompt the 21st – “Spell” | (lindaghill.com)

One-Liner Wednesday: Nothing’s Off the Table

On July 15, 2011, I had my second first date with my high school sweetheart. It had been 39 years since we last saw each other, though the second first date was preceded by Facebook messages, emails, and phone calls that lifted my 55 year old heart like I was a teenager again. The date started with dinner at a casual restaurant near the river. As we sat across from each other in the cozy booth, David reassured me of a guideline we established in an early phone call:

“Nothing’s off the table.”

The dating books said to not bring up past relationships or issues that might scare off a potential partner. But we’d both been unpleasantly surprised over those 39 years by people who  were on their best behavior at first. We didn’t want to waste time, and we didn’t want any BIG surprises. So we asked lots of questions and shared about our past successes, mistakes, and lessons learned – not all on that second first date, but over the next several months of a long-distance romance. We’ve been married 6 and a half years now. But I can still remember the butterflies of our second first date, the after dinner walk along the river, and the second first kiss.

You can read the whole story in Trust the Timing, A Memoir of Finding Love Again.

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For more one-liners, visit Linda G. Hill at:

https://lindaghill.com/2019/07/10/one-liner-wednesday-so-much-water/

Here are the guidelines:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Try to make it either funny or inspirational.

3. Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.

4. Add our lovely new badge to your post for extra exposure!

5. Have fun!

Supper, Dinner, and Our Second First Date

Today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt is, “sup.”

Supper is what you have at home in the evening. That’s what my dad called it. He called lunch, dinner. It was a little confusing, since it seems like most people call the mid-day meal lunch and the evening meal dinner. But for dad, lunch was dinner, at least when I was a kid. “When I was a child,” Mom would say, because, “Kids are baby goats.”

Sup has also been used as a verb, as in “Come sup with us.”  I had to go look that up to be sure. It seems to refer to sipping a drink. But it works with eating supper, too. Sup also stands for stand up paddling. As in a boat, or paddle board. Not getting paddled like they did when I was in Jr High school. I don’t even want to go there. And of course there’s the slang for for “What’s up?”

Supper is not what we had on our second first date. Seven years ago, I was anticipating a dinner date with my long lost love.  He found me on Facebook in June of 2011 after 39 years of no contact. He did not say, “Sup?”

On July 15, 2011, he drove down to North Carolina from Connecticut to take me out to dinner. We went to a cozy pub called Paddy’s Hollow with brick walls and soft Tiffany lamps. We talked about the 39 years since our last goodbye. Then we put the leftover nachos in his rented car and walked along the river.

His kiss awakened feelings I had not felt in a long time. (That’s a line from my book, Trust the Timing.) We watched the sun set behind the trees on the other side of the river.

 

That night, he called his mom and told her I was beautiful. He also left the nachos in his car over night. Because he was so taken with me.  I was taken with him, too and floated on cloud nine for weeks, maybe months.

Every year in July, we go back to that same restaurant to celebrate the anniversary of our second first date with dinner.  We don’t leave the nachos in the car. But we like to walk along the river and watch the sunset.

 

In the winter, we like to roast vegetables in the oven. It makes the house smell wonderful and the dogs drool. Then we eat supper and save some roasted veggies (sweet potatoes, white potatoes, onions, carrots, zucchini, peppers, mushrooms, and whole cloves of garlic) for lunch the next day.  Or maybe if we have supper at home the night before, that could make lunch be dinner.  Anything is possible in the Stream of Consciousness as in life.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you by Linda G. Hill. You can learn more about SOCS and “sup” at the link below:

https://lindaghill.com/2018/07/06/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-7-18/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

First Date: 1971

I had my first real date with my first high school sweetheart in 1971. I don’t know the exact date, but it was in October, if memory serves. But it could have been November. I was almost 16. His mom picked me up at my house, with him in the car of course, and she dropped us off at the movie theater to see Billy Jack, a movie about a quiet war veteran who defended his girlfriend’s hippie school and her honor from the corrupt sheriff and his corrupt son. There was a lot of racial injustice of Native American children at the school located somewhere out west. I loved that movie. Later, I learned how to play the theme song, “One Tin Soldier” on my guitar.

 

After the movie, we went across the street for pizza and talked about the world and Billy Jack’s motorcycle, and wouldn’t it be great to go to a hippie school like the one Billy Jack’s girlfriend ran?

We went on many more dates until my first boyfriend had to move back north with his family, 700 miles. So far away, as Carole King would sing, and I didn’t see him again for 39 years. I do remember the date of our second first date. It was July 15, 2011. If you want to know what happened on that date, you can read my book. I hope to publish it in November, or at least before the end of the year. The date is still up for grabs and up to God who knows best.

After my Stream of Consciousness slowed down and I was wrapping up this post, I looked up Tom Laughlin. I had forgotten he died in 2013, on my birthday, December 12. Does that mean something that he died on my birthday? He was way more than an actor, producer, and screenwriter. He started a successful Montessori school in California and wrote books on Jungian Psychology. I didn’t know that before. I must have known that he ran for president, but I had forgotten that. To learn more about the man who played Billy Jack, read this.

Today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt was the word, “date.” Find out more at Linda Hill’s blog:

https://lindaghill.com/2016/08/19/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-2016/

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours.  Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!