What Safe Feels Like

Speech, sight, hearing, smell & proprioception fade, but the sense of touch remains.

We’re listening to Andre Rieu waltzes. Mostly, the Blue Danube over and over, on Alexa. Alexa has no idea she’s repeating things. That’s okay. Mom has no idea it’s repeating either.

We saw him live more than a few years ago and from the cheap seats we could see the entire orchestra on stage in their ridiculous and gorgeous ball gowns–and everyone who danced in the aisles as they played.

I miss doing that kind of thing together.

It’s dinnertime. We’re sitting next to each other on the bed, hip to hip, both of us with our feet on the floor, my left arm around her shoulder, holding her to me as I feed her. She can hold a glass when she wants to, but she can’t feed herself. She leans in to me, nuzzles under my chin like a kitten.

I love that.

When she first came to stay with me, six years ago, she was more lucid, but that cuddly part has always been there. We’d watch TV, laying next to each other in her bed. She’d curl into my armpit, eventually falling asleep safely snuggled into me. I’d slip out after I was sure my leaving wouldn’t wake her.

I miss that, and this is as close as we get to it now.

There are photos I can’t find. I’m a kid. We’re at the beach, in our bathing suits. Her’s a modest yellow two piece, with falsies because she was so self-conscious of how long and thin she was, 5’9”, 118 lbs. Model thin. Mine, a green Speedo thing, I think. We lay on a blanket on the sand reading, her on her belly, me on my back, using her ass as my pillow.

Another. Decades later. We’re at a march in Washington. She’s gotten a painful sinus headache, she’d get them from the wind. In this photo, I’m sitting on some public steps, her head in my lap, my arm protectively on her shoulder, as she lays across the steps waiting to feel better.

Infants discover the world around them first through their skin,  comforted by the warmth of skin on skin. A child clutches a worn well-loved stuffie to her chest.  We're there again. Speech, sight, hearing, smell & proprioception fade, but the sense of touch remains. 

Maybe that’s all anyone wants.
Maybe that’s all any of us needs.

Touch.
To be touched.
To feel safe.
To feel loved.

It’s so simple.
The difficulty is in admitting it to the world and to ourselves, I guess.