Touch Me

"Touch is the oldest sense and the most urgent."
-Diane Ackerman

Touch has been on my mind a lot lately. As the previously drought stricken will marvel at new rain-something formerly prosaic that seems positively relevatory in its reappearance-I've been reveling in touching. The deep unadulterated pleasure of being touched. How all the cells in your body sing out in a verse that is both a clamor (more!) and a hallelujah (amen!). How the cells light up like newly juiced Christmas lights, on the here and there of you.

Seperate from anything X-rated, just the celebration of the simple pleasure of having license to hug someone whenever the feeling strikes. To punch them in the shoulder or butt them with your head as you're walking down the sidewalk. Don't tell me we're not animals, don't tell me that when, after a soul suckingly shitty day, all you want is a big enveloping hug so warm its cloaks you from all the world's cold.

As Mary Oliver writes:

"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves."

And my soft animal loves to be touched.