Do you remember the day you touched a puppy for the first time?
The cutest one in a litter of three?
It would have been a long time ago, maybe a year before you lost your first milk tooth.

Remember how gingerly you would place it on your lap and watch it sleep? Its feeble heartbeat that you could sense on your palms, the caressing warmth of its supple skin?
Remember how when you touched it, it let a whisper of a shriek , touched you back and nibbled on your finger ?
And that feeling when you realized that something that you touch , touches you back with equal affection?

Chances are that you gave the puppy a name.
Tuffy, is it?

The touch was momentary, but the memory lives on.

Over time, there came new experiences of the touch.
Maybe you remember when you touched someone you loved for the first time.
The contour of their palm is etched in your memory forever.
When you touched them, they touched you back in equal measure. That was when the circuit got complete.

You felt a connection.

Chances are that they are not around anymore.

The touch was momentary, but the memory lives on.

Do you remember the first time you touched the earth?
Chances are that you don’t.

Do you remember the last time you touched the earth?
Chances are that you don’t.

I am not talking about the casual touch, the brushing of sand against your skin on a beach that you wish to sanitize as soon as possible.

I am talking about digging your hands into the earth, feeling the warmth of freshly dug up soil, picking up that deep, rich earth with absolute reverence.

When you touch the earth like that, just as the other instances,
The earth touches you back,
Welled up in the emotion of homecoming of an alienated son.

The first puppy, the first lover have gone far away from you.
But the earth has been waiting forever, in no hurry, holding a reserve of faith, that in time, your fingers will caress her.

Today, I ask you,
Would you touch her?

Maybe the circuit will complete.
And you will feel, a lasting, undeniable,
Connection.

Today is the day.

Roll up your sleeves, get on your knees.
She’s been waiting for far too long.