Closeness – a touch, a touch, a touch 2


To meld into an embrace, hugging so tightly that your breathing relaxes, your muscles release, and you exchange meaning: love, appreciation, sorrow, joy.

It is this closeness that is being missed.

To join in rhythm to the music, dancing in sync, courting – pheromones and maybe love.

It is this closeness that is being lost.

Shoulders to lean into
Hands to hold
Fingers to knead
Lips to kiss

To initiate a caress, to invite touch, to chase and kick and dunk and spike and swim and commingle and…

It is this closeness that is being tamped.

As you…so me.
Will we ever be close again?

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I have noticed with silent alarm how rare it’s become to see public displays of affection. They began to dwindle after the devices appeared. And now, with the necessary protocols of the pandemic, the sighting of people showing affection is becoming a relic of the past. Some humans may never get to experience the bounty of human physical expression that we took so for granted that many of us avoided it or thought we could live well without it.

What of our young ones? Can they expect what they have not witnessed? Will they know what they are missing? What will their courtship rituals be? Will they hug or kiss? How terrible it would be if physical expression were to be so restricted and conflicted that we would lose being able to connect with each other through the magic and meaning of touch.

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About Candelaria Silva

Candelaria Silva-Collins is a marketing, community outreach and programming consultant; writer; and trainer/facilitator who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She has designed and facilitated workshops on a wide variety of topics including communication, facilitation, job search skills, team building, and parenting issues. She currently coordinates the Community Membership Program of the Huntington Theatre Company. Her work as Director of ACT Roxbury was profiled in several publications, including The Creative Communities Builders Handbook. Candelaria’s children’s stories, short stories, essays and reviews have been published in local and national publications and she is an active blogger. Her publications include the booklets, Handling Rejection; Pushing through Shyness: Networking Tips when You’re Shy, Slow to Warm Up or Just don’t Feel you Belong; and Real Questions about Sex & Relationships for Teens: A Discussion Guide for Parents. She has served on the boards of Goddard College, Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston Foundation for Architecture, and Discover Roxbury. She is currently Chair, Designators of the Henderson Foundation.

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2 thoughts on “Closeness – a touch, a touch, a touch

    • Candelaria Silva Post author

      Thank you for reading. I do become nostalgic. I posted on Facebook an article from the Dorchester Repoter that a young woman wrote about meeting the love of her life in high school. It was so touching. I realize we don’t have first person accounts of love or see affection in general (even before Covid-19).