Under the Skin
Touch, Unfolded: Anticipating, Creating, and Realizing Connection
For those who believe emotional proximity is the first meaningful occurrency.
French Connections was made to be read like a letter—slowly, personally, and with someone in mind. The stories stay close, even after the last line.
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On a first fire note, writing about the senses—Touch in this case—and their role in human connection turned out to be more complex and playful than I had anticipated. Especially when balancing personal experiences (as I originally intended for this newsletter) with more conceptual ponderings—ones that I hope will deepen and better as the writing goes.
Take Touch as an example. Of all the traditional senses, it’s the most primal—it’s the most embodied. Push past physicality, and you begin to slip into another’s mind—perceiving the world as they do, and catching the train of their thoughts and responses. That rare alignment, where two people’s perceptions and presence align, is perhaps the closest we get to true attunement. Yet, when you look at touch in its full unfolding, it goes beyond the physical. Its potency surfaces as it flirts with converging perception—a tacit understanding that bridges the touched and the felt, the grasped and the sensed.
Through hands, posture, and gesture, touch skims the surface of intimacy. But beneath, it unravels, speaking volumes. Before the impact, we extend feelers, eager to sense the moment, to attune, and to sync with another through a shared pulse—suspended between heartbeats. In that space, the impact can be electric or as soft as a whisper. And after the collision, if you’ll permit, skin holds touch’s echo, like a memory made tangible.
Here’s an invitation to explore the tenuous art of touch, fingertip-close
In the Grip of Anticipation
Two people. Impending connection…
