"Touch is our first language," writes novelist and poet Marge Piercy in her poem "The tao of touch" posted on today's Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor.
"We touch each other so many / ways, in curiosity, in anger, / to command attention, to soothe, / to quiet, to rouse, to cure," writes Piercy.
Tonight as I drove to my office to grade creative writing portfolios, PR media kits and freshmen comp research papers, I passed Project Turnabout Halfway House. A huddle of twenty-something young men barreled out a side door, probably thirsty for fresh spring air after being pent up in an intense session facing the demons of addiction. I noticed one guy with a shaved head grin and then body-slam into another guy's back. Touch. Connection. The macho-male southwest Minnesota version. The tao of touch in treatment. What we crave, as Piercy writes. What heals.
"We touch each other so many / ways, in curiosity, in anger, / to command attention, to soothe, / to quiet, to rouse, to cure," writes Piercy.
Tonight as I drove to my office to grade creative writing portfolios, PR media kits and freshmen comp research papers, I passed Project Turnabout Halfway House. A huddle of twenty-something young men barreled out a side door, probably thirsty for fresh spring air after being pent up in an intense session facing the demons of addiction. I noticed one guy with a shaved head grin and then body-slam into another guy's back. Touch. Connection. The macho-male southwest Minnesota version. The tao of touch in treatment. What we crave, as Piercy writes. What heals.
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