BLOG: The Miracle of Touch and of Proprioception

The older I get the more I find I am blown away by some of the systems the human body deploys to meet the demands of our daily lives. (Especially since some of them are beginning to break down.) Last night I spent 20 minutes in our kitchen searching my wife’s back for a miniscule (to my eye mostly microscopic) hair that had been tormenting her. She was wearing a sweater she calls “Brown Wooly” which is an exquisitely warm, dense and complex, interwoven mat of hairs – essentially a pelt. How could she feel so desperately one tiny hair under all that wool? And, this morning, leaving for the studio, I inadvertently spilled a few beads of millet seed into our key drawer. In the dark, casually and easily, my fingertips found and removed each tiny sphere.

The miracle of Touch.

And then, this morning, sequestered inside of a rolling box made of glass, steel, plastic, rubber and iron (among other elements), I negotiated a massive, expertly engineered machine (which next to the human body is no more than a Legos construction) right up against the concrete curb. Wrapped up in 4 layers of clothing, including a double layer of gloves, sitting comfortably in something that is pretty close to an Anechoic Chamber, I deftly negotiated the rolling box within 1/4 of an inch of concrete that threatened to drag off some rubber.

The miracle of Proprioception.

Unbelievable. I found myself sitting in my car outside my studio in that state of awe and astonishment often reserved for much bigger displays of of overwhelming power – like a mountain or an ocean or a god.

What a way to start the day – over come by a little mysterium tremendum et fascinans.