a hand in the stream

Before the baby arrives, J and I go to therapy. We book in-person because it seems unlikely that we will be able to go in-person after. This is how we speak of the baby arriving. After.

We settle on the couch of RJ’s office and ask him what we should know. How to prepare. Oh, us and all our feints towards this particular After.

When we say our fears, what we are trying to prepare for and against, mine is collapse. The fire. I name it and J flinches.

It was a bad time for us, I say and J flinches again. He has gone very still on the couch beside me. It’s your fault it was a bad time, that is what J hears even though it is not what I think.

Our time with RJ does not go well.

Sixty minutes harden J until he is a red-faced knot and my arms are locked around my chest. RJ spins from side-to-side in his office chair. He has another appointment after us and his anxiety about letting us go home in active conflict buzzes around his yellow notepad, a dark, heaviness at the throat of the one porch light still on after dark.

Of course, we fight in the car. You said. You meant. You are. Streetlight slits the car-dark apart.

**

The greatest clue to the inner structure of any dynamic process lies in its reaction to change.

— Christopher Alexander

**

The next session with RJ we lug in our burdens —

He said.

She meant.

He is.

We bluster. Huff and puff. I’m gesturing wildly with my hands. J turns concrete through his upper back and shoulders.

You don’t have to feel so hurt, RJ tells each of us.

OF COURSE WE DO, we counter. DO YOU HEAR WHAT HE/SHE IS SAYING ABOUT ME?

RJ shrugs lightly.

You can choose to feel differently, he tells us. You don’t have to make what the other says about you yours. You don’t have to pick it up. You don’t have to take it personally.

**

Rather than a harmonious, holistic tapestry, the garden is itself always in a state of vexation: a weaving-together, but also a coming-apart.

— Catriona Sandilands

**

There is a decision to be made between what is said about you in conflict and what you feel about what has been said.

What you decide, RJ tells us, will influence how you feel.

Unfortunately, neither J nor I experience a decision-moment between what is said and what is felt. It’s 0 to 60 in .00002 seconds or less. It’s the express train to how-dare-you every time.

RJ is unbothered. Part of the work is first identifying that there is a decision to be made.

You can choose how you feel about what’s been said, RJ says. And if it feels like you can’t, you have to slow down, create a pause.

But how? we wonder. It seems impossible.

**

Perception is like a hand measuring the depth of a stream; something is always displaced.

— Tony B via Are.na