Yes, I am still grateful to Skype for giving me the opportunity to watch the development of my newest granddaughter, who was born in New Zealand and currently lives in Islamabad, Pakistan. She is almost 6 months old now.
Finally, Sara and Aroha arrived for a visit. I reached out to hug them both as they came down the escalator at LAX and my eyes sprung a water leak. An almost unspeakable, unacknowledged and unexpressed sadness and frustration has been lodged in my body as a result of only being able to see and hear them without being able to touch, taste or smell them
The pure pleasure of having them here gave me a concentrated gift of normalcy. All of my senses could finally be engaged. I love to kiss baby feet. Brand new wiggly toes, soft baby skin, eyes that dance with delight, fingers, arms, hands and legs, all in perpetual motion, filled my heart each day that they were here.
They are gone again.
I don’t know when I will touch them but I can, once again, see them and hear them and have that experience often.
Here is the dilemma. My sense of touch, taste and smell is thwarted. It is put in a straightjacket and relegated to solitary confinement. I hate it. Sad is the result.
It isn’t debilitating. I can walk, talk and function efficiently. If you met me on the street you wouldn’t know that I have a powerful companion named sadness that is visible only to me.
This may all sound over-dramatic but I am expressing this as strongly as I can for a reason.
Technology has brought so many gifts that have opened new ways of communicating globally. I am grateful for the opportunities. At the same time, I am experiencing the full force of one of the major downsides.
It can be summed up in two words. Head-trip.
As long as I live in my head and keep a tight rein on the voice of my heart, I can glide through important life events by seeing and hearing what unfolds around me. That is an important part of the equation but my other senses of touch, taste and smell are locked in a vault with no opportunity to participate.
Don’t bail out from following me at this point by trying to come up with a solution to my problem. Don’t bother telling me, “that is life as we know it today” or “be grateful that you’ve at least been able to see them” or whatever else you come up with to keep the topic of sadness at bay.
This isn’t a problem to be solved. Instead, it is a reality that I am experiencing. I am telling you about it to give my sadness a voice. A platform.
I am sharing this because I intend to legitimatize my sadness. It is alive, potent and important.
Why? Because I am unwilling to live my life as a head-trip, divorced from my feeling nature so that I can cope. Instead, I intend to have all of my senses engaged whenever I can and at the same time be aware enough to know when the environment I am in can only support my seeing and hearing with no opportunity for my heart to engage or my other senses to be involved.
This phenomenon of having our five senses restricted or marginally engaged may be why we are constantly confronted with over-the-top sexuality and out-of-control base humor.
It may simply be a backlash from our silenced senses that are restricted from normal opportunities for appropriate expression in our faster-than-the-speed-of-light interactions with others.
Susan Velasquez is the author of the emotional intelligence resource book: “Beyond Intellect: Journey Into the Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind.” Reach her at: susanvelasquez.com or 494-7773.
