Touch me, PLEASE…

We are hungry, all of us.

Feed me, please. I’m in need of your… touch.

The physical experience of intention activating your body to interact with mine is something most of us never get tired of. We can feel anxious, uncomfortable, scared even- but beneath the defense mechanisms, we want it. Touch me, hold me, just graze your hand on my shoulder, but touch me.

I’m not the same without it and I’m not the same with it. Physical contact transforms me. It illuminates the dark places within my being; the shadowy, whispy caverns that get accustomed to perma-dusk. When I am open to receive the magic embedded in your touch I can feel the cells deep inside leap towards each other, dancing in the sprinkler like kids on a hot summer day. Life is beautiful when it is tactile.

I experimented with Orthodoxy once upon a time. For a year I mindfully moved through the world abstaining from physical contact with members of the opposite sex and it was profound- profoundly troubling. While it was wonderful to expand my willingness to give and receive physical contact with men, the absence of the soft, energetic graze of a woman was intensely present. The power of a good shoulder squeeze and the firmness of a huggable greeting was wonderful from the men I lived and learned with on a daily basis, but the loss of female contact while manageable, became something I decided was not something I’d ever want to live without. Never again.

She was a cute, Macrobiotic, Orthodox woman and it seemed the whole physical touch interdiction thing was getting under her skin as well. A few weeks of sharing smiles, giggles and Tamari roasted pumpkin seeds and it was on. As the sun headed down behind the olive trees, she guided me up the back stairs of an old Armenian spice shop to the roof. We stood and held each other for half an hour as the pink and gray of dusk wove a tapestry of touch into our lives once again. No kisses, No groping. No need. It was sublime and we soaked it up until we were good and done.

I never again voluntarily abstained from touch. There have of course been some “dry spells” here and there but it is something I’m acutely tuned in to as a need that can not ever be satiated. An itch that I will scratch until the cows come home.

I was speaking to someone at the airport this morning about the new, more “invasive”  TSA pat down security screenings at U.S. airports and her response struck me: “I think it is ridiculous that so many people are upset about it. It’s free touch! Who cares who’s touching me? Who can’t use a little feel on a stressful day of connecting flights?” Makes a person think twice before jumping to speed dial an attorney over the governmental grope.