Meditation on Touch

A few weeks back I tasked myself with writing a monologue for performance.  I've written about eight to date, but ideas weren't coming at the time and I decided to simply write two sentences and then follow wherever they led.  Below is the piece that came from that exercise. When I finished, I realized how important touch is to our species. Comments welcome.

I don't know how long I've been here.  Do you? Some times when I sit really still in that corner over there and lean into the seam where the walls come together and close my eyes, I become the room.  The room breathes with me, completely in sync, until I can't tell where my body ends and the room begins.  And I imagine the walls and the floor becoming soft.  My body sinks into that softness and then the warmth comes.  I feel small, and wound in a cocoon of flannel.  I look up and see a face with blue eyes, full lips curved in a smile and then the finger comes and touches my nose; the knuckle grazes my cheek; the hand  cups my head.  My heart grows still; all my nerves concentrate on that hand.  I stare into the eyes of this stranger who will not long be a stranger--my mother.


I don't know how long I've been here.  Do you? Some times when I sit really still in that other corner over there and lean into the seam where the walls come together and close my eyes, I become the room.  The room breathes with me, completely in sync, until I can't tell where my body ends and the room begins. The wall and the ceiling take on the shape, the feel of a bed.  I'm lying on my back, knees bent and I watch as the big, tanned rough hewn hands gently take my feet, tickle them and then begin rotating them like the crankshaft on a steam engine, slowly at first and then fast and faster...faster and faster until the face above the hands b reaks out in laughter and my little body confulses with giggles.  Then I'm pulled into the air against a huge chest smelling of tobacco, Old Spice and feel a beating heart not my own, but my father's.

I don't know how long I've been here.  Do you? Some times when I sit really still in that third corner over there and lean into the seam where the walls come together and close my eyes, I become the room.  The room breathes with me, completely in sync, until I can't tell where my body ends and the room begins.  The floor becomes grass and the walls the rough bark of a tree.  I feel hot tears slipping down my face.  Then a paw, slight, on my leg and then another, heavier, and a cold touch against my nose, a raspy, wet stroke across my cheek, furry warmth burrowing under my crossed arms, forcing them  open.  My hands knead the contours of the body, feel the comfort of bone and sinew, the touch of compassion from my four footed friend.

I don't know how long I've been here.  Do you? Some times when I sit really still in that last corner over there and lean into the seam where the walls come together and close my eyes, I become the room.  The room breathes with me, completely in sync, until I can't tell where my body ends and the room begins.  And the floor becomes damp sand and the walls his  body--arms encircling me, legs twining with mine, skin against skin, damp, cool, lips against my neck, breath tickling my ear, heart beating against my back, droplets of water from his hair tracing their way down waterways between my breasts.  An ocean of touch--the touch of my lover.

I don't know how long I've been here.  Do you? Some times when I sit really still  on the floor and  close my eyes, I become the room.  The room breathes with me, completely in sync, until I can't tell where my body ends and the room begins.  And the floor becomes a meadow of flowers swaying lazily in a warm breeze.  My hands spread across the expanse of belly and I grow still, listening and seeing with fingertips and there it is, the somersaulting of life, the tiny punch of hand and foot--this, our first, most intimate touch--the touch of my child.


I don't know how long I've been here.  Do you? I've all but forgotten touch, the touch of anything, anything living, alive with pulsing, warmth,with...Life.  All I know is the touch of these walls, this floor-- hard, unyielding, cold.  I long for touch with a pain that threatens to unravel me.  Some times when I stand really still in the center of the room and close my eyes, I become the room.  The room breathes with me, completely in sync, until I can't tell where my body ends and the room begins.  And I wait; I wait for touch  to come, any touch.  It does not come.  A moment of terror, of despair, of unutterable loss wells up. Then I take a deep breath and smile, close my eyes, imagine my body expanding outward into the walls, into the beyond, into the forever and then it comes, finally, the touch of a hand on my head, gently caressing, so slight that  I think I almost imagine it and the walls and floor and ceiling dissolve and I am enveloped in touch, touched by pure touch, touch that feeds the spirit and erases all pain.  Touch that tells me I exist, that I am here now, and that I am not alone.


I don't know how long I've been here.  Do you?  That's OK.  It doesn't matter--because when I close  my eyes and smile, you touch me.

The Quilter- A Monologue for Performance

Copyright July  2011  All Rights Reserved

(Grandmother sits with granddaughter (not seen) teaching her how to quilt while reminiscing.)

Lila Belle your stitches're way too big.  Slow down and take your time.  You got no place you need to be but here.  Now don’t you go and roll your eyes at me.  When I was your age I’d sit all day with my grandmother and quilt.  We’d have us glasses of sweet tea, sliced tomatoes fresh from the garden and toast.  With friends, a quilt in the making and iced tea you could set the world to rights in no time.  Course men folk called it gossiping, but it was more than that, much more.

Sweetie sit still.  You scrunching around like you got ants in your pants. You need to visit the little girl’s room?  Huh? No?  Well I tell you  what, you take yourself a deep breath and when you breathe out just push that needle in.  That's right. But slower.  You gotta get yourself a rhythm going, then the mind can just wander off cause the hands, why they know just what to do.

Oh gosh let me think.  Why I reckon I was 7 or 8 when I worked on my first quilt.  Course I done a bit of piecing before that just like you're doin now.  I remember sitting on my Nana’s screened in porch.  My grandpa'd put in a ceiling fan on the porch and it’d go round and round stirring up hot air of a summer’s afternoon.  My bangs kept tickling my forehead and the dust from the cotton fields across the road would get in my nose.  I’d do my darndest not to sneeze, but sometimes I’d just have to let loose with one and then of course three more would follow.  I always sneezed in groups of fours and so did your mama.  Yes, she did.  I found that so strange.

Lila Belle you make me sound old as the hills.  Old times?  Shoot I’m not old enough to remember old times yet.  You give me a few more years sweetie pie before start askin me about old times.  Those stitches are looking good. Most people forget to breathe when they’re working on something new.  And that just makes it harder, so you just remember to breathe real deep.  Oh and smile too, cause that relaxes the whole body and then when you’re relaxed you can breathe better.  That’s it.

Your mother?  Of course darlin', I got boatloads of memories of your Momma.  There was the time she was 13 or so and had to bake a cake for a Halloween Party at school.  And I told her she had to do it all by herself cause I had my hands full with your Uncle Hiram and Uncle Oris. Well I don’t know what she was thinking, but she didn’t hardly let the cakes cool before she was covering it with green icing.  Now I never understood why she used green food coloring for Hallo... Oh, well you may be right; maybe for second she thought it was St Patty’s Day.  Anyway she was slathering this green icing all over the warm cake and when she put the second layer on top and started covering it with icing, the top layer started to slide off.  Course I was hanging out the wash when all this was going on. She started screaming and I ran in there thinking she’d done cut off a finger or something and I took one look at that lopsided cake dubbed it the Leaning Tower of Pisa and then I just burst out laughing.    Your Momma, she just glared at me with that look of hers.  It took her a minute or two before she let her funny bone get tickled and then she let out a whoop you could hear clean across town.  Then with her fingers, she pushed the top layer back in place and skewered it all with toothpicks and licked her fingers.  It looked sort of like a fat, green  porcupine which I decided was just about perfect for a Halloween cake. And you know what? That cake plate came back licked clean as a whistle!

Oh Lord it’s hot as Hades in here.  I wish I had that ole fan of Grandpa's?

Well you're just full of questions today. Oh yes I remember great Nana Margaret.  She was my mother-in-law and despite what everybody says about mother-in-laws I always liked her.  No honey, don't hold the needle so tight; you'll get a cramp.  You’ll get the hang of it, just takes  practice.  You do a little bit every day and before you  know it you’ll be quilting in your sleep.

Now where was I.  Oh yes Nana Margaret.  She was a helluva woman.  Oops guess I’ll have to put a quarter in the jar.  Course if I say enough bad words we might have us enough money saved up to get us an ice cream cone.  That’d go down real nice right about now.

Anyway Nana Margaret.  I met her when I was 16.  She seemed old to me at the time, but I realize now she couldn’t have been more than 38 or 39 and here I am on the downhill side of 70 and I don’t feel all that old.  Course when you're 16 everyone older seems old to you.  What?   

Well let’s see she musta been 83 or 84 when she passed.  She had a good long run at life.

I remember she kept the coffeepot going all day long.  Of course she was so laid back I always thought she needed the caffeine to overcome her natural lassitude.  I never saw her hurry for anything.  And it'd drive me nuts cause she'd be late all the time, but now I kinda admire her for it.

My last memory of her?  What an interesting question Lila Belle.  Well let me think.  Two days before she died I was on the phone with her, long distance.  She sounded good.  Not as if she'd be gone in 48 hours.   I asked her how she was doin?  And she said,  "I feel like I'm just losing myself bit by bit, kinda floating.  You know, I'm off on my last, great adventure." I asked her, “Margaret what’s your earliest memory?” She paused, I don’t know if she was still smoking at that point, but often when we talked on the phone, I’d hear her take a drag on her cigarette while she accessed her memory banks.  “Well”,--she always seemed to start her thoughts with a long, drawn out 'well' as if she was giving herself time to collect her thoughts. So she said, “Well, I can see myself in this drainage ditch along the road.  It’s summer; and it’s hot as hell. Oh Ok you're right.  That’s another quarter, but she said it not me.  

Then she said,  “I’m dripping with sweat.  I never did perspire. And I sure as hel...heck didn’t glow.  There's not a cloud in the sky.  But the sky's not that crisp blue you get on a cold, dry winter’s day.  No it’s kinda milky blue. And the ditch is still damp with dew, so it must be morning.  I’m surrounded by dandelions, a carpet of yellow all around me. My arms are out and I’m twirling in circles. Even now I can feel a smile on my face.  Don’t know where I am, but the flowers sure are pretty in the morning light.”  Those were her exact words.  For some reason they just stuck with me. She died two days later, in the morning.  I still miss her.

You know what Lila Belle, I think you and me need to raid the curse jar, cause we need us an ice cream cone right about now.  Don'tcha think?