Life without touch: Reflections by one who touches

Laurel Lozzi

Special to Village News

As the world rapidly changes, time slows down. When everything feels so wrong, the birds sing to us of all that is right in the world. Headlines remind us of the many who have died, while the new buds on the trees remind us of renewal.

A call from a longtime friend or distant relative reminds us of what's important in life, while we no longer hug those close. We creatively adjust to life's new protocols, while we pause our planning in the face of uncertainty. Our call to gratitude is just as loud as our cries of grief.

In all of this paradox and collective change, many people are left without jobs or overwhelmed with new immediate work and, for some, not much has changed at all.

Yet we are all touched. Touched by fear, touched by devastation, touched by beauty, touched by humanity and touched by change. Hopefully, all leading us closer to what matters most.

I dare say, what matters most is connection – to ourselves, each other and something greater than us. We are now given the opportunity to creatively find connection without touch.

I passed by two horses softly standing next to each other, affectionately leaning in toward one another. Not touching bodies. Not grazing, nor walking – simply standing close with presence. It looked like they were hugging, if horses could do such a thing. I was struck by this image as an example of what's possible in our current times.

We are no longer physically touching, yet there is a rare opportunity in what was our-fast-moving-world to pause and become ever more present in the moment. To feel the space between us, to find a more subtle way of knowing we are connected. This is a vulnerable act – to simply be with someone else, to feel and be felt. No distraction, no words, no touch to soothe or distract.

As our lives pause and the knits and purls of life get tighter, so too, do our relationships. There is no eating out or going out or being out. For many, no more hugs or signs of physical affection. Even if we live with others, we are all more alone as touch takes pause.

With resilience and creativity, we now dress up and have date night in our living rooms. We ask our friends for suggestions on how they may home school their children. We learn how our boundaries may be different from those we live with. We buy groceries for our ailing friends. We send prayers to those who are dying alone. We drop off groceries to the local food pantry.

We call a friend just to hear another's voice. We dance with each other through our computer screens. And we grieve what we've lost – our community meeting houses and churches, our weekly workouts, our incomes, our routines, our schedules, our alone time – or together time, our acquaintances and our semblance of certainty.

Everything has moved into virtual space – work, classes, gatherings, meetings, even bodywork sessions and partner dances. It speaks to our creativity and our adaptability, yet what is lost, is lost. That closeness between those two horses, the thing that happens when we put our bodies close, in the same place near each other: that cannot be replaced by screens.

And thus, we grieve. We go outside and we find that subtle intimacy yet again. In the fragrance of blooming jasmine, in the light moving across the hillside as the clouds pass overhead, in the familiar ra-tat-tat of the neighborhood woodpecker, in the rain lightly kissing our cheeks.

I recently learned a poem by Wendell Berry that resonates for these uncertain times about the dark. "To go in the dark with a light is to know the light, To know dark, go dark, go without sight, And you'll find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, And is traveled by dark feet and dark wings."

May we all find ground in this new time and wings to carry us when our feet tire.

Laurel Lozzi's craniosacral therapy and massage practice is currently on pause at Transcendent Touch Healing Massage in Fallbrook with her father Craig Lozzi. In the meantime, she's focusing on coaching clients around emotions and relationships. She uses her deep listening skills for intuitive, restorative and connecting sessions.