Body

I loved being carried as a small child. My brothers seemed to enjoy picking me up and moving me around, would go out of their way to pick me up and move me out of the way. They were often the ones to carry me in from the car at night, or swing me around before depositing me in bed. Their male presence, their strength and affection gave me the counter point to my difficult father.

My father was loved by my cousins, because he would get on the floor with the children and play with them. He happily became one of the boys wrestling. I suspect it is his version of affection as the youngest of six boys inadequately supervised by busy parents. He often hurt me in the roughhousing with my brothers. So when I went to sit on him while he was napping, he thought it affection. I was trying to hurt him back. When I hit him, it was to return the pain. Or get back at him for making my mother cry. I learned to be wary of touch, and to draw back. It bothered me that he could not tell the difference.

My most sensual memory of my mother is of her tucking me in bed. She would run her hand over my body, over the blankets. It felt protective and sexual and holy, and my tensions would melt, my mind quieten down, and I would sleep. I could not understand, though I knew enough not to ask, why she avoided certain areas, and this disturbed me.

My Aunt Evelyn was the one I found when I got tired at family gatherings. I would sit beside her and lean into her, rocked to sleep as she gestured and talked and laughed in the conversations around her. She would complain of her arm going to sleep or how heavy I was getting, but only later, only after I was awake again. I knew she took my trust as compliment, as painful honor. She died when I was living across the country, just starting my new job. My grief for her lasted acutely until I was able, years later, to stand at her grave. Not a ceremony common in my family. But once I was there, I was able to finally bestow tears on her, her beloved Ernie beside her. My pain began to lift that day, and the loss began to heal. I can still feel her arms around me when I am very tired.

D and I began our relationship in the context of an Army National Guard unit deployed to the Gulf in 1991. We would talk, a lot, in public areas. There were only public areas. We would lean together, shoulder to shoulder, or back to back. We walked discreetly holding pinkie fingers, because to walk hand in hand in uniform was PDA, an actionable offense against military decorum. But the need to touch was irresistible, a powerful physical attraction between us insisted. I hugged him as he stood at the postal counter (he was one of the postmen for the unit) by putting my chin on his shoulder, leaning in from behind him, my hands demurely by my side. Not like we felt we were fooling anybody, just keeping to the letter of the UCMJ.

Which is all not to say we didn't find privacy for more intimate contact, it just had to be carefully done. Our public conversations were wide ranging, a comedy act, and compared to most of those around us, terribly intellectual. Yes, we actually talked about books that we had actually read. One time, Sgt. Tina Somebodyorother commented that it was good that two smart people could spend all our time talking about Shakespeare and Science and such! We looked at each other in a kind of amazement that she would think that was what we did ALL THE TIME, when we both knew we'd indulged very, very, quietly in graphically sexual contact. We bit our respective lips and nodded and tried not to laugh out loud. Yup, yup, that is exactly what we were doing, talking about astronomy, uh huh.

We still touch each other often, prefer to sit next to each other, hug enthusiastically when we come home, rub cheeks watching a movie. Like drops of water on a counter, our bodies reach out to each other.

My dearest friend -M- lives on that Other coast, due to some guy - C- she met at D& my reception - a childhood friend of D. She was dating a Pretty Jerk, but at one point in the evening M & C were standing together, and at a glance the word "Couple" came into my head. After dumping Pretty Jerk a month or so later, she began to correspond with C via email, and after several visits in person, she moved out to be with him. They have now a rich, physical, and delightful-to-be-in-the-room-with marriage. But they started out with a powerful in person attraction. Then made sure it was real.

And M and I now have to grow our friendship through the words. But when I see her in person, we hold on to each other, lean together, or simply sit together in each other's presence. We don't talk as well then, but we laugh more. We began our friendship with both talk, and physical contact working together. Last visit out there, I fell asleep on her couch, under her mother's substantial afghan.

I long to hold her baby when she makes her appearance, to know who she really is. To know if she falls asleep in my arms. To find out if we, too, can be friends.