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A Many Splintered Thing

14 · Aug · 2002


Love.
A many splendored thing.
A many splintered thing.
Many cindered things.
My how it stings.

Today I got a full body massage, a perk of my new job at a Spa. I have never received such a personal service from a stranger, but I was so stressed and in such need of attention, I minded less than I might've otherwise. It so happened that the music playing at the time was of an exotic and somehow familiar nature and the combination of stimuli opened a vault of memory and imagination in my mind. For a while, I thought of my childhood. I imagined my body as a map and tried to think of each body part as a separate entity explaining itself. For example, if my shoulder could talk - where would it say it had been? This was amusing at first, knowing that if my shoulders could talk, there would be serious complaints. And you can guess other things my feet may have said and so on.

But when the therapist began to massage my hand, my eyes flew open in alarm. I can't explain why, but this was a little uncomfortable for me. My hands have rarely ever been touched, held or nudged, without automatically responding back. I had to concentrate to keep my fingers relaxed. The stories that even my eyes could tell, were nothing in comparison to my hands. Memories shot around my head like ricocheting bullets. There were scenes of childhood friends, my father's arms on his recliner, my mother's perfectly manicured nails, the memory of the feel of someone's closed eyes, my niece's hair when she was two, and indentions the cement made while I leaned on my palms in the driveway of a house I haven't occupied in 16 years. But the clincher memories were of other hands reaching to hold mine. Love made and love lost.

This is what my hands said. This is what they believe to be their greatest work: reaching across a table and resting softly with the hand of another. I have made this simple gesture to so few people. And yet, I can remember nearly every time someone has reached out to me. There is something in taking a hand over a table, knowing everyone will see. It reveals a brave vulnerability that clasping hands while walking or sitting side by side cannot.

Sometimes when a person I know is hurting and they sit across from me talking about their worries, they say it with a smile. To joke about our depression is one way we stay sane. And having a lot of young, single friends, a couple or eight drinks are also means of escape. Though I completely get that everybody handles their sadness in their own way, I have suppressed my urge to take their hand or touch their face so many times. Love is either taken too lightly or too romantically these days. I hope that changes so that one day I can sit across from you and say "But I love you, OK?" without even opening my mouth.
penny rene'
__________________________________________
second summer skin

you are my second summer skin
and the one i need when winter begins
snowflake on my tongue, perspiration on my lip
salty and chilled, every part of this
so much better with you than without
just once i need to say it out loud
i love you

you are the ache in my hard heart
so lovingly, you can tear me apart
angel teaching me to give up being right
together alone through the night
you are my second summer skin

and the one i need when winter begins
snowflake on my tongue, perspiration on my lip
salty and chilled, every part of this
i should be with not without
this once i need to say it out loud
i love you

penny rené

Posted by Penny Rene at August 14, 2002 03:20 PM

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