When my wife and partner of 33 years died, I was 61 and desperate to reinvent myself, to reconnect, but to whom, with what? A not particularly wise friend said something important. "You need the touch of a woman." I could never risk visiting a sex worker, the idea terrified me. But I knew of a well- regarded therapeutic masseuse. Even her touch frightened me, exposed me. But, yes, I found her touch curative and, in a way, better than loving. I was released back into the land of the living.
Bruce, I felt your words settle like a warm hand on my chest.
Not because our stories are the same—but because the ache you named carries the same texture. That quiet, disorienting kind. The one that asks: Do I still exist where no one reaches?
You didn't rush back to life. You let someone anchor you in it. And yes, touch that doesn't demand can feel more honest than love that needs to be earned.
Thank you for sharing this. It reminds me that presence, even fleeting, is never small.
It's a really unnervingly beautiful piece. I felt my heart clenched the whole time reading because this distance and lack of connection -- this absence -- is so palpable in this piece and it really gets under your skin. Perhaps it's the choice of words that makes it relatable, or maybe the honestly of how you write about it... but it feels like a pang in the heart.
I'm just seeing this image of two objects within each other's gravitational force, rotating in constant motion, but there is not even a wind touching them, nothing connected... they just somehow move in methodical, predictable fashion to each other, but without true contact or relation.
Thank you for these words, Zeta. They've stayed with me since I read them.
What strikes me is how precisely you've captured what I was trying to reach for—that particular quality of absence that exists only in proximity. The paradox of being close enough to feel someone's gravity while remaining essentially untouched.
Your image of two objects in orbit—methodical, predictable, yet profoundly disconnected feels more accurate than anything I could have articulated myself. There's something devastating about relationships that maintain perfect form while lacking true contact.
Perhaps what resonates most is how you've reflected back the emotional truth beneath the words.
That quiet ache of recognition without connection. The way we can understand someone completely and still fail to truly reach them.
Thank you for reading with such care. For finding the heart of what I meant to say.
When my wife and partner of 33 years died, I was 61 and desperate to reinvent myself, to reconnect, but to whom, with what? A not particularly wise friend said something important. "You need the touch of a woman." I could never risk visiting a sex worker, the idea terrified me. But I knew of a well- regarded therapeutic masseuse. Even her touch frightened me, exposed me. But, yes, I found her touch curative and, in a way, better than loving. I was released back into the land of the living.
Bruce, I felt your words settle like a warm hand on my chest.
Not because our stories are the same—but because the ache you named carries the same texture. That quiet, disorienting kind. The one that asks: Do I still exist where no one reaches?
You didn't rush back to life. You let someone anchor you in it. And yes, touch that doesn't demand can feel more honest than love that needs to be earned.
Thank you for sharing this. It reminds me that presence, even fleeting, is never small.
It's a really unnervingly beautiful piece. I felt my heart clenched the whole time reading because this distance and lack of connection -- this absence -- is so palpable in this piece and it really gets under your skin. Perhaps it's the choice of words that makes it relatable, or maybe the honestly of how you write about it... but it feels like a pang in the heart.
I'm just seeing this image of two objects within each other's gravitational force, rotating in constant motion, but there is not even a wind touching them, nothing connected... they just somehow move in methodical, predictable fashion to each other, but without true contact or relation.
Thank you for these words, Zeta. They've stayed with me since I read them.
What strikes me is how precisely you've captured what I was trying to reach for—that particular quality of absence that exists only in proximity. The paradox of being close enough to feel someone's gravity while remaining essentially untouched.
Your image of two objects in orbit—methodical, predictable, yet profoundly disconnected feels more accurate than anything I could have articulated myself. There's something devastating about relationships that maintain perfect form while lacking true contact.
Perhaps what resonates most is how you've reflected back the emotional truth beneath the words.
That quiet ache of recognition without connection. The way we can understand someone completely and still fail to truly reach them.
Thank you for reading with such care. For finding the heart of what I meant to say.
This is beautifully painful. You could probably write a whole book on this subject.
Thanks a lot. Much appreciated. I will consider it—a collection of memoirs.