Stimpson Nature Reserve
I drove to Stimpson Nature Reserve to walk and think about Christopher and me. Nosing up from the fir-felted earth under the coniferous spread of tender needles, a raw, exposed saprophitic protrusion unsheathes itself, coral root nakedly probing its slender body into the dangerous atmosphere.
I wonder at the recent fights Christopher and I have had, the raw tumult of our pasts, coming here to root in the layers of our lives. Who is this man I've known for nine months? Are we moving further into harmony, or growing away and out of synchronization? Where is the wonderful rhythm of that beginning? The trust we gave before the barbs and thorns began to dig into flesh, making us sore and irritable.
Solid earth thuds under my feet, a hollow feeling of intermingling root and detritus, the earlier life of the forest covered and decaying, sending up its messengers in slugs, worms, snakes...
I've made a mistake in believing Christopher's anger is about me. Triggered, I had to throw up the barrier, protect myself. Defended, I blocked him from trying to come back, and wondered if we will ever work this strange thing out, wondered, will he do his part?
Smeared across the path, a glistening trail of slime, the balled up body of a banana slug, entrails flayed and oozing out its finished life. Even in death, a glitter of light, falling... I made a mistake yesterday. Christopher made a mistake. Will we repair this now, or is it too late, too many fights, too much need for space, or breaks or cracks or holes or fissures or leaks? We need to do this differently. Can we? Remember all the sweet times, remember all the good?
Sun bears down hard above, is caught there, the first blows of its light broken-up above, spreads down, drifts to reach me gently with small soft touches, like the clumps of cottonwood seed snowing across the trail.
It is time for me to really hear Christopher's anger, to be there for him, and know this is not about me. What do I want? I want to be there for Christopher in this, for him, in his real and deep healing. I think I am ready. Is he?
A chapter from: In a Cradle of Words: Intimate Encounters in
Relational Therapy, written by Laurel Vogel, produced in collaboration with Christopher Diggins—all rights reserved. To find out more about
the writer and this collaboration, visit her website at: