Hugs

I have one very cuddly child.

She will come to me and literally fit in my arms, as if she were made only to be there. The other three people in my family are kind of spiky. They are so un-tactile that they pretty much won’t be touched at all. I have to bribe them for a hug, or threaten them with something awful, like no telly, or no supper. My neighbour says that this is all to do with something called ‘love languages’. I’ve been aware of this concept for a while; the idea is that each person has a thing they prefer when it comes to others showing their love and it goes thus:

• Words of affirmation (Compliments, encouragement, “I love you”)

• Acts of service (Love, but in chore form.)

• Receiving gifts (Thoughtful presents that show you were are thinking about them)

• Quality time (Undivided attention)

• Physical touch (Hugs etc)

Cat hugs. Interestingly, only one of my three cats wants to be hugged

I mean, I’ll take all of them thanks. It’s a bit too neat isn’t it. But I definitely appreciate that there are certain people in my house (all of the people, apart from my youngest hugger) who would prefer not to be held, or to hold me. And I will admit that there are also times, because I’m not allowed to hug people, for whom I show my love by doing quite boring things that I’d rather not be doing, but they don’t notice these things, because they attach no value to them (I’m thinking here about having clean clothes put away, or a dry towel at arms reach….things I would LOVE to have someone do for me by the way!)

she will even hug my legs

I think in general we are all quite adept now, at being encouraging to others. Certainly as a parent, having been told that I must praise them for everything they try hard at doing, that muscle is well-used and it now comes naturally. We are less good though, at giving quality time…specifically undivided attention. This is not just because of the glass hamsters we all carry around and continue to stroke¹, desperately seeking some sort of end to the thread…some sort of meaning perhaps? No, it’s also because as adults we have forgotten how to do nothing and just be with one-another.

I love Arthur Brooks on this. His podcast is excellent and this one, on boredom was particularly good; I urge you to listen to it. He explains the brain chemistry behind our aversion to boredom, and the reasons why it feels so uncomfortable. He cites this study, in which young men, made to sit in a room with nothing in it except a button they could press which would administer an electric shock, routinely chose to shock themselves in order to alleviate the discomfort of having nothing to do. FASCINATING. It stands to reason then, that rather than do nothing, we look at our phones for literally no good reason eleventy squillion times a day.

conversation with my father yesterday. The phones are probably somewhere hidden in our laps

The problem is that obviously, all the creativity, the ideas, the revelations, the conclusions, the magic, sit on the other side of boredom. And that’s probably true also when it comes to relationships. I wonder if you’ve ever thought of all conversations you didn’t have, the gazing into each other’s eyes you didn’t do, the shared experiences you missed, the revelations you failed to grasp, the moments you forgot to ACTUALLY live…because of the hand-held computers that are always there, demanding our attention.

I do.

I think about those things a lot.

That was intense. Happy Easter! He is Risen! Here is my Easter table, which we put into the garden at the last minute, because the sun came out! And then we did a whole lot of clearing out, because very soon we are getting a new kitchen…more of which also very soon.

x Laetitia

1. The always excellent Mark Diacono invented this metaphor and it’s perfect