On kisses and kissing

     I am really excited to cross the world in order to meet you again. It will be great to be guided around Asia by you. For sure I will be in very good hands. All along last morning I was packing my stuff for this long journey. I'm missing your kisses, your smell, our long talks into the night, your touch.

     By the way, I was just seeing this picture of a high relief in Vienna, at a monument in honour of Strauss. It reminded me of your way of kissing... of your peculiar lips kisses, with not much tongue envolved. I'm glad I'll have plenty of them again in a short while.

     Writing about your kisses, I remember now one of my favourite poems, written by the great Catullus to his beloved Lesbia in Rome, around 65 BC. I remember I shared it with you months ago. This is an English translation:

     Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,

     and all the words of the grave old men

     may be worth less than one penny!

     Suns may set, and suns may rise again;

     but when our brief light extinguishes,

     we will sleep a never ending night.

     So kiss me thousand times, then hundred more,

     then thousand others, and a second hundred,

     yet another thousand, and one more hundred.

     Then, when we have counted up many thousands,

     we will mix them so as not to know them all,

     or any evil one is able to envy us 

     when he knows how many kisses we have shared.