Way back when in Boston there was this tallish, slender brunette of 19 or 20 whom I knew and liked a lot, and vice versa. Her name escaped years ago, but we had this moment on a second-floor landing of a staircase inside a Boston apartment building. I had to leave and we were talking a bit before saying goodbye, and then we held our arms out and just sank into this hungry embrace.

She had these long sinewy arms and strong grippy hands and so did I, and we just got wrapped up in the envelopment of it, holding each other closer and tighter than we probably expected to do at first but holding, holding…as close together as our bodies could have been from a standing-up position, and neither easing up.

I don’t know how long we held the position hut it had to have been a good couple of minutes, maybe three. We hadn’t been on intimate terms before this moment and we somehow never went there in the aftermath, and, as noted, I don’t even recall her name. Lotsa love, passion and perspiration over the decades, but after that Beantown staircase hug I never experienced anything like it ever again. Which is why it’s still in my head.

The other day I described it to a friend as a “lesbian hug.” She called it a “mommy goodbye hug.”