Gentle touches

Spent all day and deep into the evening Saturday at a wedding studying the ways and means and manners by which people gently touch each other, and so communicate this and that and the other thing; to wit,

how fathers gently affectionately lay their hands on the thin eager elegant swannish necks of their children, as a way to say stay or pause here or hang on one minute while I complete this conversational business up here and then you can launch off into the distance;

and the way a man will almost unconsciously but not quite extend his elbow toward the woman he likes best, thus creating a space for her to slip her arm into his as they step through the door or start down the stairs or stroll away from the car toward the event at hand;