Wild Card — 1/11/09

23 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

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  Cindy_H on January 11 at 1:11 p.m.

  I’ve been thinking about hugs, lately. Do you hug people you don’t know well?
  Our elderly neighbor had had a stroke while visiting family in the Midwest. His daughter, who I don’t know well, had stopped by the house before Christmas to tell me about it and asked me to keep an eye are their house. She and I have only had a couple brief conversations in the 15 years we’ve lived across the street from her parents, but she knows we’ve always watched out for them, and she knows how much I miss my own dad. She stopped by yesterday and asked for me. My husband told her I was out. She said, “My dad died last night. I just wanted to tell Cindy,” and started to cry. Now, my husband is a hugger. He’s warm and affectionate, but he paused as this virtual stranger cried on our doorstep. “I wanted to hug her,” he said. “But it was weird.”
  Meanwhile, I was at the gym. I ran into a fellow whose 21-year-old son had died on Thanksgiving last year. I knew this was his second Christmas without Ryan so I asked how the holidays had been. “Really, hard,” he said and his eyes filled with tears. Sweaty men banged weights around us, women jogged laps nearby, and we stood there in an island of sadness.
  I wanted to wrap my arms around him. But like my husband said, it was weird.
  What would you have done?

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  Sisyphus on January 11 at 3:43 p.m.

  Those are huggable moments as one can often tell from hindsight. But depending on how many things I’m juggling in my head at the time, I can be the king of awkward. It would depend on the moment and the context. One thing’s for sure, you bear no fault for a snap decision based upon your assessment at the time. Some people recoil at physical contact and others might lose it in a public setting by the gesture. If it continues to bother you find a way to let them know you care. Certainly by asking the question you should be reassured that you’re human.

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  fotoman on January 11 at 4:21 p.m.

  I tend to be more of a hugger the older I get. I think you get more compassionate as the years go by. I’ve never spontaneously hugged someone and sensed it wasn’t right. When I chicken out and don’t hug at one of those moments, I usually wish I would have later on.

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  poolman on January 11 at 4:57 p.m.

  My in-laws are all big huggers. They hug at hello and goodbye - every time - no matter how long it has been since our last visit. This used to drive me crazy, but now it’s rubbed off a little. I guess, via osmoses, I’ve become a bit of a hugger over the years. It’s not such a bad thing. Now the mother in-law trying to get kisses - that is a little over the top.

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  Kage_Mann on January 11 at 7:23 p.m.

  This thread has been turned into a blog about hugging by CH and that can’t be a picture of her either.

  Anyway,this winter I was shoveling the driveway of an 84 year old CDA woman.And when I was done she gave me a staggering $70/tip for my good work.I was so moved by this I tried to give her a hug but, she balked by saying: “there are too many icicles in your beard”. So,a friendly pat on the shoulder was sufficient.

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  thawtfulreader on January 11 at 9:52 p.m.

  “What would you have done?’

  Hugged.

  And no discussion of hugging on the internet can not have this:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

• 

  thawtfulreader on January 11 at 10:40 p.m.

  How Many Nights

  How many nights
  have I lain in terror,
  O Creator Spirit, Maker of night and day,

  only to walk out
  the next morning over the frozen world
  hearing under the creaking of snow
  faint, peaceful breaths …
  snake,

  bear, earthworm, ant …
  and above me a wild crow crying ‘yaw yaw yaw’
  from a branch nothing cried from ever in my life.

  -Galway Kinnell

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  Sparky on January 12 at 12:04 a.m.

  CindyH, great question. It was a subject I have been thinking about this weekend after an encounter with a new friend and his sharing that his wife had passed. It inspired my newest blog post.

  http://sparkysnotes.blogspot.com/

  Hugging can be intimate for some people and for others its a way to say hello. The right moment and the right person, hug away.

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  Bob on January 12 at 6:36 a.m.

  Hugging is an interesting thing, I’m convinced there are two types of people in this world - those that put people into two types and those that don’t, so being of the former, I think there are huggers and there are non-huggers. I’m totally a non-hugger. To hug someone other than a lover causes me consternation and anxiety. I’m almost autistic-like in my tactile defensiveness. It may be because I’m so damn ticklish, well, Princess Raindrop of the Purple Daffodils, my mythological creature the magical and delicious Unicorn totem animal spirit-guide thinks there’s some link between being a “ticklesilly bunny!” as she puts it and my aversion to the act of hugging.

  Be that as it may, I am resolved to change my revulsion to the act as I sense that in these final days as we perch teetering on the brink of a stunningly violent collapse of our total economy and civilization as we know it and we are horribly transformed into hunger-zombies staggering about the countryside stealing and foraging and eating labradoodles and parakeets, that hugging may be one last remaining semblance of our once glorious and ascendant humanity, and that by hugging we can again achieve even miniscule releases of dopamine and social connectedness and we can frisk the huggee for weapons and brain them from close quarters with monkey wrenches if we discover they have items on their persons that would help us survive in the Post-Bush Failure Age hell-world we’ve been cursed with.

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  KevinTaylor on January 12 at 6:41 a.m.

  Wow. No country for Old Bobs

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  Cindy_H on January 12 at 9:19 a.m.

  thawtfulreader: loved the hugging video.
  ((Bob))

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  piah on January 12 at 1:04 p.m.

  I was raised in a non-hugging culture and one of the most awkward situations I can end up in, is when a complete stranger looks at me and says, “You neeeeed a hug!!”
  And I can’t escape.
  And there’s no polite way of denying the hugger.
  And everyone is staring at me because my wide-eyed expression shows everything but gratitude.
  Mind you, a complete stranger in this scenario can very well be someone I’ve worked with for a couple of years.
  It’s all a matter of perspective - right? If a solid handshake will do, who needs full frontal body contact?
  Of course I like hugging someone I know WELL, my kid, my boyfriend, my mom, my close friends - but I am just not comfortable with the whole stranger hug thing.
  It’s gotten better over the years - my Leadership Spokane friends had what I perceived as a “hug a pia” campaign going for a while, after I confessed my hug anxiety and I can now “do it” without breaking into a full body sweat. I may even like it a little bit. Little.
  As for when it’s appropriate to hug, I simply ask.
  “Can I hug you?” seems to work just fine for me.

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