"Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar"
Antonio Machado
How do we find our way back to each other?
It is inevitable to find ourselves at odds with the person we love. To get out of step, and distance ourselves from the one person it matters more than anything to be close to. And when it does, how do we cover the ground between us?
It happened to us last night. He asked me a question, and it just rubbed me the wrong way. It brought up all sorts of feelings, and I couldn’t let it go. Or more accurately, I chose not to let it go, and instead kept at it, and kept at him, until it brought up all sorts of feelings in him, and we were off to the—thankfully rare—races. Stony silence replaced the easy banter we usually enjoy while cleaning up the kitchen. I was squarely on my side of things, and he was squarely on his.
On our nightly walk we did our best to sort it out. To get underneath what was going on at the surface, because it is almost never about the “thing”, but the thing beneath the thing. Naming what is really going on under there is a beginning, which as we all know, is a very good place to start. Walking, in the dark, side-by-side, as we do every night, provides familiar territory to tread when we feel lost, and solid ground beneath our feet when we feel off balance. We crawled into bed knowing that there was more ground to cover, but it would have to wait until the light of a new day.
Heading out to the Adirondack chairs with our morning coffee and fleece blankets, we settled in. After a few minutes, we checked in with each other. Covered some of the same ground from the night before, and uncovered a bit of new. We named what we each could have done differently, offered apologies that came easier than at the very end of what had felt like a very long day. Making sure to say all that needed to be said, and hear all that needed to be heard, it was time to enjoy our coffee, read our morning readings, watch a deer family cavort in the field, and take in a view that we never take for granted. And as we sat there, at some point, we were there. Together. Again.
How do we find our way back to each other?
By doing it.
Again and again and again. And again. Until death do us part.
Coffee helps.
