Cuddles

“Cuddles” is not your local lady of p . . . leisure.  She, or he, is you, and me.

Skin to skin contact is important for every human being.  A great deal of research has indicated that infants who lack enough physical touch may never achieve full emotional development.  In 2010 Katherine Harmon reported in The Scientific American, “. . . many stories of delayed development and troublesome behavior, such as in the seven-year-old Russian orphan who was returned by his adoptive family in the U.S. in April 2010, have spurred researchers to take an even closer look into the effects of early contact deprivation.”

Maybe part of me is still a baby but for me, as one member of an adult couple, physical contact remains essential.  It reinforces the connection between me and my partner.  Physical contact always comforts me.  Occasionally I even tell Daveen that I need to cling to her.  Sometimes I don’t even know why.  She has always been available, without question or hesitation.

I also like physical contact while walking.  In addition to the pleasure of connection I can maintain greater stability.  I’m less likely to fall.  Two or three times a year I stumble.  When I’m physically connected to the person I’m walking with, I keep my balance better.  And they stay upright as well.  I am touched every time my father, now one hundred years old, interlocks his arm with mine as we walk together toward a restaurant, or up a flight of stairs.  After more than thirty five years I am still thrilled when Daveen reaches her arm around my waist as, for example, we admire a particularly beautiful sunset.

At the beginning of our relationship my second wife, Susan, was uncomfortable with any public display of affection, including holding hands while we walked along a sidewalk.  Fortunately, it didn’t take her long to grow used to touching and being touched — even my arm around her shoulder or my hand holding her at the waist.  Sometimes she even held on to me.  I liked that.  I still do.  How do you know you’re really together unless at least part of your connection is physical?

Of course, our need for physical contact goes far beyond the sidewalk, and all the way to the bedroom.  I’m not talking about sex here.  I’m talking about physical contact, in this case cuddling.

Whether we have made love or not, whether we’re tired or not, Daveen and I have cultivated the habit of cuddling as we lie in bed each night before we fall asleep.  It is one of the treats of my life when she falls asleep first, her breath slowing, her body relaxing into my arms.  I feel Daveen trusting me with herself, and that is a high compliment indeed.  It speaks to the very essence of our marriage.

Each of us is alone enough every day, and that is normal and natural.  Few of us are, or would want to be, Siamese twins. But let’s end the day, or begin it, with a cuddle.

“The Peerless Quartet” recorded a song more than one hundred years ago, yet it’s a song you may remember.  Here’s the refrain.  You might try inserting “Cuddles” for “Sweetheart.”  I often do.