To Hold and be Held

In the beginning, I strolled every day through Berkeley neighborhoods, amongst gardens that bloomed despite the pandemic. I thought about the life behind each door I passed. Which family member was being grieved for behind this red door? Who rested this Winnie the Pooh by the windowsill? What kind of person basked in the sunlight in this gnome-filled yard? On a corner, I stumbled on an abandoned painting of a sculptor who slept with his hand to the wall, desperate for the refreshing contact of the other, even in sleep.

I missed being around the shuffling of warm bodies. In the summer of 2020, I found myself lying in bed with arms outstretched. I yearned for something I could barely remember. But I kept strolling and imagining and looking to the horizon for a time of touch. To hold and be held.

And, through a series of scientific innovations, resilience, patience, and loss, the joy of touch did creep back. One day, heart pumping, my roommate drove me to the Oakland Coliseum. Three weeks after that, I was injected with another, slightly more painful shot. I felt my heart swell with my arm, in a speechless, gratifying anticipation. Two weeks later, I am living in postlife.

This is it, I am told: I made it past the fear, anxiety, anger, and isolation that dominated this entire year. In this time, we are told to return to “normalcy” after the injustice of our old normal has been thoroughly exposed. In this time, we are told to continue spilling into the future to get ahead and turn our backs on the communities we formed. The familiar loneliness returns and settles on me. You’re back, I greet it. You never left.

Why are we told to bury ourselves in individualism just as we can be with each other again? In the shade of my apartment, my feet are never warm. I reach my arms out to caress the cold walls and feel its loneliness too. To feel, to touch.

I fell in love during the pandemic. I am intentional about touch. I linger in the warmth that radiates from my hand and spreads all throughout their back. I trace and retrace their fingers after a bath, to feel the folds of wavy wrinkles. At night, I tune my heartbeat to theirs so that even in sleep we walk hand in hand with synchronized footsteps. I find all the places our bodies fit together and swirl like two kites caught in the summer breeze.

As I stumble into this new present, I come back to the abandoned sculptor on the sidewalk. I want to expand my imagination around what love in public can look like. I want to be artistic about my new way of being. And everything starts with venturing my hand out from the warmth of my blanket, eager and intentional about the way I reach out and hold another.

- Annie Chen