6 Feet Apart

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Two Golden Retrievers standing nose to tail. 
A dining room table. 
A door.
One and a half Mail Boxes
1.8288 Meters
Six Feet apart.
Six feet apart from friends and loved ones. 

For someone like me, the sense of touch is one of my love languages. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, I would show my love through hugs, high- fives, holding hands, and even more hugs. Touch is a nonverbal use of showing how much someone loves or cares for an individual. With the absence of touch, I feel almost empty and not as full of life as I was before this pandemic started. I feel as though I am missing a big part of me.

Diane Ackerman speaks about this in her book, A Natural History of the Senses, about “how when we lose touch (the dentist gives you a shot of novocaine; an arm or leg falls asleep from lowered blood supply), we feel odd and alien” (Ackerman 82). Now I know Ackerman was referring to novocaine or the lowered blood supply, but with the loss of human touch for long periods of time, I feel as though my body is being filled with novocaine and I am starting to lose that feeling of warmth in my body when you hug someone.

Constance Classen’s “The Deepest Sense: A Cultural History of Touch” goes into detail about how touch can mean so many different things for people. She writes on how important the sense is for interacting with one’s surroundings, this is because without the sense of touch. There is a level of disconnect between one and the physical world. Another reason I know many people including myself are having a hard time during these times is that in Rhode Island primarily the places I used to go to feel peace, are closed. The beaches where the sand would go in between my toes and the waves would clean the sand off of my feet are closed until this is under control. Or walking through Simmons Mill Pond, in Little Compton where you can feel the trees as you walk by them, or the fresh wind against your face.

Comments

  1. tessa loprestiApril 20, 2020 at 11:03 PM

    Have you seen the movie 5 Feet Apart?! I just watched it last week and your blog is really reminiscent of it. It's about these kids with cystic fibrosis and they fall in love but they're have to be 6 feet apart because they're at higher risk of getting each other sick... so anyways one part of the movie the main character decides that so much is taken from them that she wants to take something back and she decides to take back one foot so they are only 5 feet apart (hence the name of the movie). Anyways I was so frustrated while watching the movie because I, like you, thrive on touch based interactions. I love hugs and holding hands and I always tell my friends and family to give me kisses on the cheek and I never really missed it until it was gone. It's crazy how this lack of small physical interactions can make one feel so much more isolated.

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  2. Rosie SteinerMay 1, 2020 at 9:37 AM

    One aspect of being on campus that I really miss is being able to hug everyone I love; I don't know if I'm calling myself out, but last night I had a dream that I was hugging one of my friends for ten minutes because it's honestly been so long since I've hugged someone. I'm not very touchy around my family and I don't think we hug each other nearly as much as other families might hug, so being around my friends and holding hands with them or hugging and giving high-fives is how I feed my touch-starved self.

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  3. UnknownAugust 3, 2020 at 8:40 AM

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