“Touch is the first language we speak.” — Stephen Gaskin
“Touch has a memory.” — John Keats
As I continue to chronicle my COVID-19 journey in this seventh in a series of dispatches from the hideout, I’m faced with identifying my fundamental needs as I socially distance. I’m reminded by op-ed pieces that more precisely — we’re physically distancing — that we can still reach out and interact with each other virtually — or at a safe distance of six feet in small groups of people.
Though I’ve started to work at my new job at an LGBTQ+ community center, it remains closed to the public which it serves. A small group of staff, including part-time advocates like myself, provide services and plan for an uncertain future, aka, the new normal. I’m grateful for the opportunity to work and to collaborate with others again, especially since I’ve spent, for the most part, the past almost 10 weeks, physically alone.
When home, where I live alone, I spend a fair amount of time in my writing alcove at my desk which looks out a bank of windows to a busy street, railroad tracks, and lots of trees which have recently leafed and turned green. Spring has finally arrived after fits and starts of sunny, blue sky, warm days, alternating with winter-like snow, sleet, blustery winds, overcast gray skies, and cold rain. Oh, My!
Since Wisconsin is still under a Safer-at-Home edict, traffic outside the hideout has diminished during the morning and evening rush hour. I hear the birds sing in the morning, greeting the day. Trains still clickety clack and roll down the tracks gently shaking my home. On sunny days, people in pairs, parents and children, dogs and their walkers, bicyclists, and runners inhabit the street and sidewalks, while some walk the railroad tracks, or throw Frisbees and balls with their dogs in the green space that hugs the tracks.
Spring Fever, Skin Hunger
As a singleton, one of the first personal signs of spring, besides the changing weather, is an itchy restlessness, an increase in my desires and longings. Over the winter in Wisconsin, I default to a hibernation mode. In the spring I reawaken. At the same time, I begin to notice more romantic couples outdoors, walking hand-in-hand. I ask myself if I’m ready for an intimate, romantic relationship again.
It’s been over 12 years since I’ve been in a committed relationship. During that time, I’ve lived alone. Full disclosure: I’ve dipped my toes in the dating pool, however, I never dove in. I’ve had a series of crushes, acted on a couple, went out on dates, held hands, and kissed goodnight like a schoolgirl.
In the spring my limbic system kicks in and my emotional and sexual being reawakens, sparking sense memories of physical affection, sexual desire, and yes, skin hunger.
Spring Fever
Spring tides ebb and flow,
surge and crest,
flowering bulbs begin
to inch their way to daylight,
dormancy ends as shoots
break through the frost line
while the sun’s infrared heat
vibrates with a frequency that
radiates energy, liquefying
winter’s frozen mantle.
You can smell the earth,
the vernal muskiness of life awakening.
I wake earlier too and rise before dawn
to see the morning light in pink
and periwinkle hues, wispy clouds
like crinoline scrims across the horizon.
As the sun shines directly on the equator,
day and night become equal, the Spring Equinox arrives.
An itchy restlessness overcomes me;
it’s time to be reborn,
rethink my choices, ask the big questions,
the who am I, where am I’m going,
what does it all mean — mind wandering,
soul wondering, seeking.
The natural world ignites
my limbic brain like match to wick.
I’m fired up. I burn brighter,
as body memories spark emotions,
motivate movement.
My body craves raw foods, nuts and seeds,
leafy vegetables, red meat.
I forage for the fuel to drive me.
Desires and appetites grow unsated,
I want, I want, I want.
I am, I am
alive.
LLL
Skin Hunger Defined
Skin Hunger Neologism: n. the desire for physical contact from another human, especially after a period of deprivation. “Skin hunger” is a term used by the psychology community to describe the human need for physical contact which may manifest itself in mental and physiological conditions when this need is not met. — From the 21st Century Interdisciplinary Dictionary
From an article published online on Refinery29, What Happens When We Can’t Touch Each Other? Skin Hunger
“About 10 percent of Americans live alone. If they are quarantining as safely as possible, they’re entirely on their own right now, and are going without any touch for weeks on end.
If you are sitting at home alone, deprived of the even fleeting touches we experience when we hug our friends, or shake hands, or hold a niece or nephew, you’re almost very likely having your mood affected by it.
That phenomenon is known as ‘touch starvation’ or ‘skin hunger.’ It’s known to cause depression, anxiety, and insomnia. People sometimes try to combat it by attempting to recreate the sensation of touch by wrapping themselves up in blankets, or taking long baths. If you’re alone and having difficulty being productive during the quarantine, it’s not that you’re lazy, it’s that you may well be suffering from touch deprivation. Our mood is bolstered by other human’s touch without us even realizing it most of the time. “
Skin Hunger During the Pandemic
Since I live alone and have been practicing social distancing, the last time I touched someone or was touched by anyone was when I hugged my friends Leanne and Rene on March 15th after our last Sunday brunch. I elbow-bumped my brother-in-law, Ron, two days later and recently greeted new coworkers with an elbow-bump instead of the handshake or hug which was my default pre-pandemic greeting.
Physical affection has always been important to me in any relationship built on trust, whether family, friend, coworker, or member of an affinity or creative group. I shake hands. I’m a hugger by nature. I kiss friends on the cheek, family and loved ones on the lips, touch faces, squeeze a shoulder or a knee, hold hands, and in intimate moments, lay my open palm on someone’s heart. I’ll wrap my arm around a lover’s waist when we walk, and spoon when we sleep. I like to touch and to be touched.
I miss the daily casual touch and affection shared in greetings, expressed in support, and when saying goodbye. To employ a euphemism, though I’m a person of a certain age, I remain a sexual being. Self-pleasuring during the pandemic is my only option.
Some people are experimenting with a new trend, ‘quaranteaming,’ “The latest social trend in the coronavirus outbreak is ‘quaranteaming,’ where people are deciding to quarantine, either permanently or temporarily, with someone they don’t live with.”
I’m not ready to invite someone into my home, or join them in theirs, though I would like to spend some social time, perhaps outdoors with individual or small groups of friends or family under 5 people, who’ve been socially distancing in their own homes and would be willing to share some time together, six feet apart, wearing masks. Yes, at least for now, the new normal.
As scientists, health care professionals, economists, and psychologists have been studying the effects of the coronavirus pandemic they’ve discovered that there is a medical pandemic (the COVID-19 virus), an economic crisis causing local, state, and the federal government to urge a return to work and life, an emotional pandemic affecting the well-being of the public as we shelter-in-place, isolated in our homes, causing ‘deaths of despair’, drug overdoses, excessive alcohol consumption, and suicide, and lastly skin hunger.
I’m going to give Jim Morrison and the Doors the last word. Touch Me.
Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Dispatch from the Hideout: The End Is Here!
Dispatch from the Hideout: Riding the Coronacoaster
Dispatch from the Hideout: Staycation Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: Letter to Loved Ones
Dispatch from the Hideout: Quarantine Bubble Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: What Was, What Will Be
Dispatch from the Hideout: Back to Life
Dispatch from the Hideout: Stirred Crazy
Dispatch from the Hideout: Home Alone Easter Holiday
Dispatch from the Hideout: Home Alone Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: Pandemic Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: Social Distancing
Dispatch from the Hideout: Premature Hibernation
Hibernation & the Holidays: Retreat to the Hideout
Another Dispatch from the Hideout
The Itchy Restlessness of Spring Fever
Additional Reading
What Happens When We Can’t Touch Each Other? Skin Hunger
Skin hunger helps explain your desperate longing for human touch
COVID-19 Is Causing “Skin Hunger” for Many of Us
I desperately miss human touch. Science may explain why.
Some people are ‘quaranteaming’ to ride out the outbreak — but is it safe?
Thanks, as always, Linda, for your wonderful weekly commentary! You are one of the best parts of my existence. Love, Lewis.