Tactile Response

"Would you rather be blind or deaf?" is the typical dichotomy that people are asked to ponder. Most people have a ready response, but upon reflection, I don't worry about being blind or deaf. I'd be more upset about losing my sense of touch. Sure, you wouldn't be able to feel pain, but pain is a good thing. It helps you monitor injuries and brings attention to the fact that your hand is resting on the stove. Secondly, say goodbye to your sex life. At this point, wouldn't you rather be blind or deaf opposed to not being able to feel anything?


For me though, I place a high importance on my sense of touch for a number of other reasons. Yes to the aforementioned ones, but also because I have always had a strong tactile response. I like to feel the heft and texture of the world. Nothing beats running your hand along a picket fence or old brick buildings. If I can hold it, I can understand it. During the geology unit of Outdoor School, I was always able to tell the difference between minerals simply by the weight in my hands. That's not a difficult trick, but I trusted the feel of it over what I could see. 


As a child, I climbed trees. I fell out of trees too, but that didn't stop me from shimmying up trunks and branches. The wind is different 20 and 30 feet in the air and there's nothing quite like the feel of rough bark against your cheek as you cling to your wooden lifeline that sways lazily in the breeze. 


Maybe my personal response to the tactile explains my sensitivity to other people touching me. If I'm close to someone, then physical contact isn't an issue. In those cases, I enjoy the proximity and overlapping boundaries. By all means, violate my personal space. However, for most casual acquaintances, I'm much more comfortable maintaining some physical distance. 

I'm reminded of J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye where he writes: 

...she was terrific to hold hands with. Most girls, if you hold hands with them, their goddam hand dies on you, or else they think they have to keep moving their hands all the time, as if they were afraid they'd bore you or something. Jane was different. We'd get into a goddam movie or something, and right away we'd start holding hands, and we won't quite till the movie was over. And without changing the position or making a deal out of it. You never even worried, with Jane, whether your hand was sweaty or not. All you knew was, you were happy. You really were.