Skin. Our biggest organ. Our safe, warming shell.
Since long even this part of our bodies has been used by the Media surrounding us to put an un-achievable desire for perfection upon us. A spell of white porcelain. Ironed, shimmering bronze skin. Smoothed out curves wrapped around our limbs like cellophane.
We strive for new-born softness, for a flawless skin we could elegantly wear like young seals that have just dipped out of the water.
But with our focus on its look, we often forget the simpler and yet so much more intense thrill that skin has to offer – the touch.
Whatever age, whatever colour, whatever texture, your skin has it. Perhaps you wear freckles, got painted darker by the sunlight, have moles in all kinds of spots like strawberries do. As soon as another skin touches you, you will connect. The warmth of the skins float into one, the electric energy passes through you like telegraphic letters.
The skin has a language of its own. It’s the language of moments, the occasional hand shake, the accidental brush of your leg.
A light breath past your cheek, the full length of a body lying on top of your body.
Skin speaks: I am alive. I am warm. I am breathing.
The touch of a skin is an entrance to you. That’s the reason why we don’t want people with whom we have just had an argument to touch us. When skin touches warmly, we open up. We trust. We say: We don’t want to harm each other.
Once we touch, we let our skins tell each other stories. How we treat ourselves, how close we let the other one come, how many years we have let the autumn winds rush past our faces.
Especially wrinkles, the valleys that make our skin landscape so deep, illustrate our lives. Wrinkles show us how much we laughed or felt sorrow, how often we have been outside to face harsh times, how strong we are, and how bendable. There is this saying that a face without wrinkles is like a yet un-written book. I believe there is some truth in it.
Some of these stories we believe it’s better they remain untold. It does require some amount of bravery to touch another body, a skin other than yours, especially in a culture where it’s not very common to give cheek kisses or hugs regularly. Sometimes it is even hard to consciously touch yourself, feel your own skin. But once you touch – you feel the warmth.
Give it a try. Hug yourself or someone close by. Imagine you or the other one as precious, covered all over in protective skin, skin that consists of billions and billions of receptors, uncountable tunnels that set off bursts of electromagnetic receivers, little fireworks that stream inside you. This is a huge system of beaming, rushing molecules, just to send this one message to you: This touch feels good. Touch me more.
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