XXXs and OOOs

My husband and I had arrived at an acquaintance's home and there was the usual flurry of hugs and kisses.
I still find it disconcerting when the mustachioed face of someone else's husband suddenly looms into my personal space. Perhaps it's the WASP in me, but why is it that the less I know someone, the more likely I am bump cheeks, while a close friend I greet only with a smile? 

Where is sincerity? Do we find it in the families who are unable to depart for the simplest errand without kisses and "I love you"s?  I know from years as a teacher (or perhaps it's my background as a theater major) how easy it can be to slap on a counterfeit smile for that surly eleventh grader I'd too often imagined dropping out of my classroom's third floor window.

 Does that family's umpteen "I love you"s eventually have no more weight than a salesperson's "Have a nice day"?  If rare things are therefore more precious, should we ration our outward expressions of emotion so that they become more meaningful? 

 

My family was from the Southwest, long on apparent southern warmth. But while conversations were sprinkled with 'honey's', and there were goodnight kisses before we turned in, when life became sticky it often felt like every man for himself. 

My husband is of old New England stock. There had been that homestead on the edge of the Berkshires and the great-great-great uncle so noted for his bridge building  that there’s still a road named after him.  My mother-in-law was not an effusive woman; I was as likely to receive a hug from her as she was to dance on the roof of their small brick house, but she was as constant as the foundation of a Massachusetts stone wall. Her “I love you's” came not from touch, but from her actions. 

Okay, I’ll do my best not to duck those hugs from people I'm meeting for the first time, and I'll resolve to be more free with my own “I love you's,” but in my heart I’ll maintain my belief that actions speak louder than words.