The Magic of Touch

Because I’m not dead yet, I need to change this, not the world, just what I do in it. I have my opinions, although they have changed and undulated over the years with experience, learning, and perspective. I hope they continue to do this because I’m still alive and growing in knowledge and spirit if nothing else.

Life has changed. I’m of the Boomer generation, born of the men and women who survived World War II, the generation of newly built neighborhoods flooded with whirling, twirling, running, and jumping children, the first generation to grow up with the glow of a TV screen in our homes, the generation called to fight in Vietnam before our adolescence fully turned to adulthood, the psychedelic generation of flower power, Jesus Freaks and Moonies. At length, we had to grow up and take the control from our parents who grew up in very different times. We’ve been very, very busy for seven decades. And now, our children are sending their children off to college and eyeing us with the question, “How will we deal with our aging, widowed parents when they can’t take care of themselves?”

I find that sad, insulting, and scary. I don’t want to be dealt with. I fought to escape my parents for that very reason!

BUT, none of that is the point, today. Today I am besotted with the magic of touch, a magic that seems to change in character over the course of a lifetime, and yet… never changes.

In my gallery are two chairs by the big, bright front window. A small stack of folding metal chairs in the corner waits, just in case…. Various friends drop in during the day and if I’m not busy with customers we’ll sit in the sun and visit. What’s going on in the town, local and larger politics, projects we are working on, health concerns, whatever. There is a touch on the knee or the hand, a hug, an innocent kiss on the cheek or lips, even a handshake, simple human contact. It’s not a jolt of electricity or a flash of passion. It’s more like the old folks’ “Share water, grok in fullness” exchange. (Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land). Still, its shared life-giving energy.

Our parents’ generation was lucky to have a few simple black and white photographs of someone in their childhood. Few families had a personal camera before the War. Home movies became common when I was a child, although my dad seemed to be on the leading edge of those things, with photos of Mother when she was a hot, young thing. But Boomers are now flooded with videos of the Rock stars of our youth, the bands of the 60s and 70s. There they stand with their microphones, guitars, and drum sets, their long hair and beautiful smooth baby faces that they’ve tried to age with fringes of facial hair. Always, online, someone superimposes a more current picture of that rocker, now in his late 70s or mid-80s. My, how the visage changes! But, what we recall is that young face, those rich vocal tones of youth, forever captured in sound and motion, as long as the grid doesn’t go down. Hearing the music even without the images, transports me right back to that time and age, that aching in my heart to be loved, to experience something grander than my chores, classes, and studies, the urge to move into some unknown exciting future…. Now, on the other side of that “exciting future,” I realize it was the expectation and the unknown, the journey and not the arrival, which held the energy and the passion.

Now, this aside is not to denigrate ANY of my great friends (or LOVES) in my life, but there was a person who is forever connected in my memory to the blossoming of my fantastic youthful idiocy. This morning, I imagined gently cupping my hand on the 75-year-old face of Raymond Fullerton (if he’s still alive), touching that unexplained scar running down his cheek, and gazing into those sky-blue eyes. Just to touch that face, however it appears now, and say, “Thank you,” without gushing. He wasn’t the love of my life, but he was the big crush who toyed with me for a season in high school, the guy who teased me, but who was never mine. It doesn’t matter. The time was exciting. I can still feel it, and I thank him for simply being there. Unknowingly, he provided fodder for many hours of meaningful discussion with my friend Bethany, as we sat playing Beatles albums in her bedroom. I am thankful for those silly but very important months of my life. There were many other people who were so much more a part of my reality, or who simply impressed me from the edges of community, snatches of memories, impressions that remain. I’d love to touch each of them, just a simple touch of “thanks” whether or not they remember me, or even laughed at my idiocy. It’s all okay, in fact, I celebrate it! The fabric of experience, the shimmering strands of hope and dreams become the tapestry of a life.

And what do we do with that tapestry or that patchwork quilt that we have woven, or that has been stitched around us by unseen hands? Only we recognize each patch of calico, wool, satin, or golden thread. No one else on Earth can read into it what is there. But we can take its whole measure and wrap it around our children, grandchildren, friends, and loved ones, embracing them with the warmth, love, and insight it represents. They can feel what they don’t fully understand and still benefit from its touch, our spiritual embrace.

That should be my closing comment, except that, as I said before, I’m not dead, yet. Although in two days I will be 73, I woke up on the right side of the grass this morning, I am vertical and breathing, thinking, and dreaming. How much larger might this tapestry become, or am I simply applying the fringe at this point? I don’t know…. So, I’ll just keep on bobbing and weaving and occasionally being a pain in the tuchus for some and a light in the darkness for others.

What’s YOUR plan for the day?