Fifty Shades of Pink: If Lipstick Could Talk

I miss being kissed.  Really kissed.  I get warm hugs and kisses all the time.  Just not THAT kind.  You don't have to read the Kama Sutra (which I think was written by an accountant, it is so filled with numbers), to know that there are as many different kinds of kisses, as there are shades of lipstick.  Widows get, and give the cheeks and forehead kind of kisses, with a firm, meaningful hug.  Anything else, wouldn't be appropriate.

Oh, for those passionate kisses!  Every woman deserves a man who will ruin her lipstick, not her mascara.  Isn't that the best line?   I miss my husband's lips pressed gently against mine.  I miss being held close for a long time.  Feeling a pink blush sweep across my face...feeling safe and protected in his arms.  Passion and trust, are essential to a loving, and intimate relationship.  

This is one of the most excrutiating, uncomfortable posts I've ever written. Vulnerable, is not my favourite state of being.  I am strong on authenticity - on being honest about this journey I share with widows around the world.  The truth is, the sensual nature of an intimate relationship is missing, both from my life, and the lives of other widows.  That's sad.

While I am blessed with great relationships with amazing men, who are loving, caring, encouraging and supportive, they're nearly all married, gay, half my age, or all of the above.  For the first time in the three and half years since my husband died, I am yearning for more.  That's scary.

Waking up to this new desire, is a little like being in a Disney nightmare, inwhich despite not having been kissed by Prince Charming, Sleeping Beauty awakens to find she's surrounded by an alternate version of Snow White's Seven Dwarfs: Grumpy, Sleazy, Boring, Dim Wit, Milktoast, Obnoxious, and Misogynist.  That's horrifying. 

As the soft light of the afternoon falls on the roses, Andrea Bocelli sings, Mi baci piano ed io torno ad esistere - you kiss me slowly and I am alive again - lines of Italian verse in Ed Sheeran's song, Perfect.  It's just one of the music selections for this week's photo shoot on lipstick colours.  I love the energy of French singer, Zaz singing Je Veux, the angst of the sixties French singer, Francoise Hardy singing, Tous les Garcons et les Filles, and Leonard Cohen's Dance Me to the End of Love.  A friend suggested a title for the cover photo, Seal's song, Kiss From a Rose, which is...perfect.

I'd planned to shoot a collection of pink lipstick tubes and pink roses - something linear and graphic.  These billowy, ruffled, pink-tipped peach coloured roses, looked fabulous, so I tossed the original idea (I can do that) in favour of a sensual, playful, feminine, and Parisien look. 

I wrote the word Love, across pieces of paper in Wisteria Rose, and Luminous Pink Pearl lipstick.  The word Love, is beautiful to write by hand in pen.  It's sublime to write it in rich, creamy lipstick.

For two afternoons (one deeply overcast, the other lightly sunny), I joyfully rediscovered my ultra-feminine side, over and again, applying the Wisteria Rose and Luminous Pink Pearl to my lips, adding Lacquered Strawberry, coral Everbloom, and deep red Cherry Blossom, and kissing the colour and pattern off onto paper.  The lips take on the shape and pattern of finely veined leaves.  There's an art to kissing paper.  Getting just the right amount of lipstick, in just the right lip shape, takes a little practice.  You think I'm going to give you a craft tip?  I don't kiss and tell.  

It was exhilerating.  I laughed my way through the whole experience!  I highly recommend this as therapy for a broken heart...add a quick note to yourself on the paper, and mail it to yourself.  If those lipstick tubes could talk!  What a mess I made of my lipstick - and there were no mascara tears!

I leave you with laughter...

A little boy and his older sister were shopping for a gift for their mother.  As they explored the cosmetics department of a large store, the little boy became mezmerized by row upon row of lipstick colours.  He searched every row, and looking puzzled, called out to his sister, "hey, what size are Mum's lips?"


P.S.  After publishing this, a friend suggested Mary Chapin Carpenter's Passionate Kisses, would have been great background music for the photo shoot.  I listened.  Twice.  Does that make it a lingering passionate kiss?

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.