Humans pucker up for all kinds of reasons. We kiss for love, for luck, to say hello and goodbye. Pressing your lips against someone else and, in some cases, swapping saliva? There are many theories about how kissing originated and why we do it. Others believe kissing is instinctual and rooted in biology.
Man kisses woman sitting on his legs in the kitchen.
I recite excerpts - gleaned from literature through the ages - on nursing, from the most idealized of aphorisms through to the starkest complexities of the lived experience. It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion; it is a joy of every moment. Ah, the joy of suckling! She lovingly watched the fishlike motions of the toothless mouth, and she imagined that with her milk there flowed into her little son her deepest thoughts, concepts and dreams.