Quarantine Bloglette: Touch

About 15 or so years ago, I slipped on ice and broke my left ring finger. I wore a splint for a few weeks while it healed. When I took the splint off, I was amazed at what I could feel with the tip of that finger. I discovered the increased sensory abilities when I casually ran my fingers through my hair and felt individual hairs brushing across that fingertip. To the rest of my fingers, it felt like thick hair, but that finger perceived dozens of individual hairs.This heightened sensory ability lasted a few days during which I touched everything: fabric; my skin - I cold feel my pores; wood - there is such depth to it that we don't realize without a visual magnification of it; even paper has texture we don't usually perceive in its smoothness. I have occasionally imagined wrapping up another finger - or my entire hand - for a few weeks just to experience it again.

When this pandemic passes, like the plagues of ancient Egypt, and we start touching each other again, what will we feel?

Will we feel the trepidation thicken in the air when we bump into someone on the metro? Will we feel the anxiety that was wrung in the hands of new acquaintances? Will we feel after-shocks of the tremors of weeping in the shoulders we rub? Will we feel the residue of salty tears that ran down the cheeks we kiss?

I hope so. (Except, maybe, the trepidation.)

How long will that last? How long will we remember what we shared during these long months? How long will the empathy we are developing survive life's return to ease?

I do hope we feel relief in those hugs, excitement in all the hands and a firmness that didn't exist before in those shoulders, for we will all be new people to one degree or another.

I love the fairy tale aspect of this painting. Look up the title of the painting, Ivan Tsarevich Riding the Gray Wolf for a better image of the painting and the inspiring story of the Firebird. The Firebird, by the way, is one of the few ballets I've seen since living in Russia.