Handle with Care

by Corinne Caraway

Handle with Care

Somewhere along the edge of adolescence 
my mom used to find me on the floor of Books A Million 
surrounded by every available copy of a singular story, 
gingerly considering each version for one to call mine.

I found I felt the feeling of things 
stayed with me longer than the look of them, 
and soon my inclination towards touch 
slowly seeped into how I chose not only 
clothing, pillows, pillowcases, blankets, and jewelry, 
but candy bars, water bottles, journals, and pens. 
Eventually even rocks, leaves, and seas shells 
became subject to my holding them for a moment 
before deciding whether or not to keep them. 

My daughter felt me before she saw me, 
but armed with this alone, she knew that I was hers. 
At only eight weeks, touch begins to develop in the womb, 
and as the most acute sense operating at birth, 
contact, and the awareness of contact, 
is integral to life from the very beginning of it. 
Touch acts as our earliest anchor to reality, 
and continuously orients us without the need for constant attention. 

I no longer find it necessary to hold every option before me, 
though I do grieve the decline of the brick and mortar store. 
Instead I find myself bothered by the withholding of ourselves 
that seems to extend between people laden with age and decorum. 
Afraid of how genuine gestures of affection might be perceived  
or weary of the tendency hands have to be misused, 
I watch us stray from offering the comfort of touch all together.

An old friend of mine would press her feet 
into my calf as we sat opposite each other 
on a hand-me-down couch and shared our troubles. 
The look of me alone was insufficient to combat loneliness, 
and freely she asked for more. 
Now the years have faded the slope of sadness on her face
and the words I tried to give her grief, 
but the feel of her toes reaching for the assurance
of my presence is fastened to my memory. 

There is often a cost in coming close, 
in the embodiment of loving, 
that when willingly paid, can reorient reality. 
Like the laying of hands over eyes and ears to see them opened, 
or taking little children into your arms to bless them, 
or reaching for the untouchable outcast to bring them close,
or finding the woman so desperate for healing 
that she grazed the edge of your robe, 
or washing dirt from the feet of your betrayer, 
or reclining with friends over dinner 
as they struggle to understand you,
or offering up your own wounds for inspection 
to someone lost in their doubts. 

But this is the way God came into the world—
eating, drinking, hearing, seeing, speaking, smelling, 
and touching—gingerly allowing us to consider Him,
that we too might know how to handle with care. 

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I wrote this piece exploring ‘touch’ for a series of vignettes on the five senses that was performed at a gathering called Taste & See. If you’re a New York based artist or lover of the arts, we invite you to check out the community that curated this event at creative.nyc.

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xoxo

Corinne

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