I wasn’t taught to touch.

It wasn’t done, not by folks like us. By others less well bred, perhaps – but only because they hadn’t been taught. My siblings and I touched only by accident or to hurt. Did our parents ever kiss, much less embrace? Polite kisses were forehead pecks, lip to lip too salacious somehow. Cuddle, rumple, fondle, snuggle, well, they just weren’t done.

A proper lad, I shied from touch as a thoroughbred from horseflies. When it came time for sex, one could touch oneself – no authorization required, only privacy – but to luxuriate in another’s flesh! Foreplay I resented as deferral, no joy in itself.

Fabric and pets one was encouraged to feel: velvet, silk, and dogs. Horses were too big to hug and cats evaded one’s hold with insulting indifference.

I loved my dogs in part because I was allowed to. Propriety permitted us to romp and roll. A dog could nuzzle and lick – and I could tussle and tousle – and it felt so good, the warmth, pulse and texture of another creature.

I’m better at touching now. Dogs taught me – and children – and Jane – and grandchildren – and time. Better doesn’t mean good. Except with dogs, my physical attentions are more deliberate than instinctive. At the new mode of men hugging men, I will always be a stick.  It is easier to regret “good breeding” than recover from it.

Henry brought this topic to mind.

Henry, being a dog, explores, discovers, expresses himself by touching. His good morning is a nuzzle, gnaw or paw. He jumps on you for welcome – and while we intend to train him out of that habit, I’ll miss it when it’s gone. He sleeps on my work-bed if he feels like it. (He sleeps in his crate beside our marital bed, where three would be a crowd.) When and why Henry chooses to join me as I compose I haven’t figured out. Either he favors the coolness of the bathroom tiles or he’s miffed at my apparent preference for an illuminated box. Even if I’m writing about him (as I explain), he’s miffed; he prefers to play.

Touch is more eloquent than words. It resembles music that way – no irony, ambiguity, insincerity. What does a heartbeat through fur into a too-cushiony midriff mean? Or a snout nuzzled into an armpit? Exactly what they’re supposed to mean – closeness, trust, confidence, dependence. No “but” qualifies this “yes.” Suckling moms, I’ve heard, feel this way. Shush – words can only detract.

The increasing popularity of dogs reflects, I’m pretty sure, the dissolution of community and resulting atomization of souls. We feel more and more alone in our upholstered rooms, surrounded by our machines: in touch, yes, but untouched, thus emotionally out of touch. I shy from machine bonhomie: it makes me feel more alone, not less. A Zoomed face is to its original as a shadow to a person: real but not really. AI can fake impressions, voices, messages, but not touch.

I suspect a correlation between cuddling and conscience. Unconscionable behavior occurs when we forget the actuality of the other, that the person we mistreat suffers no less than we. This was Shylock’s point in his famous speech: a Jew is not an abstraction but a person. Such forgetfulness makes ethnic warfare possible: Palestinians and Jews are killing labels, not heartbeats.

I wish my parents had touched and taught me to. I envy my grandchildren’s joyous ease with each other and their parents. But if never deprived, would I have discovered the grandeur of the gift? Can warmth be known till we come in from the cold?