Heart to Heart
What did you do Friday night?
Eric Nagler eric@ericnagler.com

For ten minutes I was alone and quiet with my life-long partner, letting my hand

roam. I let my finger hover a fraction of an inch above that funny spot at the bridge of the nose, where you feel a little shiver of anticipation when someone reaches so delicately close. People say it's your third eye. I don't know.

And finally touching the bridge of the nose, I felt that tiny bump nestled in a fold of skin that only my partner has. I peered at the little cracks and crevices, and noticed how the wrinkles around the eyes speak of a twinkling wisdom I find so attractive.

Before I left my partner's face I looked into the eyes and breathed a sense of comfort in seeing the calmness of maturity, like a wine that has aged in an oaken cask and absorbed the tannins of a life fully lived. I ran my fingers over a familiar lump along the collarbone. I'm told it's called a lipoma, and becomes common as we grow older.

I glided my hands down the hardness of the protecting sternum anchored beneath the smooth skin. I rested my palm on my partner's heart and measured life's beating. I caressed the rise and fall of the belly, inviting it to relax beneath my touch.

This life partner, this one I love so dearly needs hide nothing from me, needs neither armour nor tightness. "I will never intentionally harm you" I said to my partner... never deliver those jabs we anticipate from a callous world.

I noticed the thrill of connection between finger tip and skin, the interface of giving and taking, the magical gossamer between stroking and receiving. I noticed my enjoyment, sensing the alternating textures of crinkly wrinkly ridges outside the elbow juxtaposed to the soft, smoothness inside.

I examined my partner's hand and ran my thumb along the palm prints... this hand that so diligently serves, that can grasp with such power and softly caress with such tenderness. Weaving my touch down my partner's body, I took in the strength of the thighs, the light fuzz of hairy calves tickling my

fingers. I wiggled each toe,

recalling the piggy poem and how each of us needs touch, how babies already know this, but how somewhere along the harshness of time we forget to seek out interludes to relax our armour. I tried to recall the last time I paid so much loving physical attention to this, my lifelong lover, the one I spend my life with... and couldn't remember. They say babies die without touch. I wonder what parts of us die when as adults we are deprived of touch. How often does this dear partner of mine crave to be touched?I resolved to caress my life partner more often. Looking into my lover's eyes I spoke that promise.

And then put down the mirror.