The skin on the side of my left knee is soft as a baby’s butt.  The rest of me is more  like an old baseball mitt. I rub the spot on my knee when I’m stressed.

My earliest effort to comfort myself was years ago.  I’d insert my left thumb into the opening of the satin edging on my blanket then place my right thumb in my mouth.  In my mind the satin’s softness would travel up one arm and down the other into my mouth.  (Don’t look for logic here!)

In junior high, I became a hair twirler.  Round and round I’d twirl hair on my finger as I read or studied.  The hair was soft and the twirling comforting.

At fifteen, my best friend and I took up smoking.  We intercepted sample Waterford cigarettes sent to our parents, waited until Judy’s parents were out and coughed our way through our first attempt at sophistication.   As we smoked and choked, we read aloud a book on quitting smoking . We laughed when the book talked about the challenge of giving up a favorite lighter or ashtray.  (I still remember fondly the green glass blob of my favorite ashtay and my brass Zippo.) I smoked for five years, quit for ten then smoked for another ten.  More addiction than comfort.

In 1965 my great aunt died. I stayed up all night before I went to her funeral.  Exhaustion insulated me from the sorrow of losing one of my favorite family members.  She was the last of our family to use Quaker plain speech. She’d Thee and Thou her way through jokes. She loved to laugh. 

I started drinking in high school.  Our friend would buy beer, and we’d ride around in his Chevy convertible listening to the Beach Boys. Sometimes we’d visit another friend’s house where his mother would serve us whiskey sours to keep us from drinking and driving. Yuck.  Alcohol helped cut the agony of high school.

Reading has been a comfort my entire life.  I read to satisfy my curiosity, travel vicariously, fill waiting room hours and to escape.  The Harry Potter books helped me through hard years at work.  Books by E. B. White, Henry Beston and John McPhee have carried me through other tight spaces.  My therapist suggested once that I not read for a week.  I refused.  “You might as well commit me now!”

My current comfort (and battle) is eating goldfish while I read.  I lost 25 pounds last winter but have been gaining them back one goldfish at a time.  Blankets no longer have satin edging but perhaps I should take up thumb sucking again. Wish me luck!