. . . We’ve all got a hill in the distance.
For some, that hill is a mountain, not a hill. But let’s all be honest: the hill in the distance might as well be a mountain for each of us, because we act like it is. We look at it, and dream about it, and think that one day it might be nice to climb it, to go see what our world looks like from there.
And then we don’t.
There are literal hills in the distance, and symbolic hills in the distance. Either way, they’re the same thing, and we don’t climb them. The hills in the distance seem too far away, and we’re certain it would anyway be quite an ascent, and who knows if there’s even a path up to it?
There is a path, though—quite a few of them. You just need to know how to look for them, and more importantly need to finally want to find them.
. . . Our time is the time of clocks and machines that tell us we don’t actually have time to go up into those hills. You have other things to do, the machines tell us. And we listen.
The time of those hills and those who dwell there isn’t like this. . . . But only sometimes do we hear them.
—Rhyd Wildermuth, “The Hill in the Distance”
I share a long moment with a gray squirrel who comes to the birdbath to quench his thirst sometimes—in close enough proximity that I determine he’s probably a he and not a she as I thought. He skittishly dines upon sunflower seeds I’ve scattered there, occasionally pausing to peer at me, so I remain still until deciding to see if I can slowwwwwly keep giving peanuts to the jays at the same time, as they’re wondering why I’ve stopped. Shrieker lands at the side of the birdbath opposite the squirrel and shrieks at him. The squirrel pauses to consider that and then resumes eating the seeds.
I’ve discovered recently that the squirrel is the one making the quick BRRR sound I hear sometimes, especially at night: he thuds the railing with his hand. Is it an expression of unease—a warning—as his nerves are on alert with my proximity?
Now the woodpecker is drinking out of the birdbath. Chickadees arrive. I’m basically Snow White over here. But where’s the witch? Oh right, I’m the witch, too.
What if the witch is not evil and is in fact in cahoots with the dwarves to draw Snow White’s true love to her? What if that union benefits everyone, softening hierarchy into alignment with the wilds?
The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed; there is no winter, and no night; all tragedies, all ennuis vanish; all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity but the forms all radiant of beloved persons. Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures
The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
—John Steinbeck, in a letter to his son Thom on November 10, 1958, published in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters
Bashfulness and apathy are a tough husk in which a delicate organization is protected from premature ripening. . . . Respect the naturalangsamkeit [German for the slowness of natural development] which hardens the ruby in a million years, and works in duration, in which Alps and Andes come and go as rainbows. . . . Let us approach our friend with an audacious trust in the truth of his heart, in the breadth, impossible to be overturned, of his foundations.
. . . When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures
All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness.
—David Whyte, Consolations
It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion. If he is unequal, he will presently pass away. . . . True love cannot be unrequited.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures
Wait, and thy heart shall speak. Wait until the necessary and everlasting overpowers you . . . . The only way to have a friend is to be one.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Lectures
And I like you because
When I am feeling sad
You don’t always cheer me up right away
Sometimes it is better to be sad
You can’t stand the others being so googly and gaggly every single minute
You want to think about things
It takes time
I like you because if I am mad at you
Then you are mad at me too
It’s awful when the other person isn’t
I like you because
I don’t know why but
Everything that happens
Is nicer with you
I can’t remember when I didn’t like you
It must have been lonesome then
I would go on choosing you
And you would go on choosing me
Over and over again
—Sandol Stoddard Warburg, I Like You
There is a way to develop and nurture interdependence and trust, to cultivate vulnerable and intentional relationships between everyone involved, to be honest about when it’s hard and to move through those feelings with care, with help, with community, with internal work, with therapy, with love. . . .
I am only just beginning to get a taste of what love feels like when I am not in emergency. . . . I am beginning to feel love as this safe and steady, living and dynamic, non-adrenalized thing. . . .
Love is not something I earn by being “good,” love is not something always under threat by outside forces. Love is freely given, loyal, kind. Love is generous, patient, steady. Love is trustworthy. . . .
When my partner is in a bad mood, distant, busy, or distracted, they still love me and it is not an emergency. When my partner is away traveling and I haven’t seen them for awhile, they still love me and it is not an emergency. . . .
For now I will say that avoidants aren’t monsters (just like you’re not a monster), and that their withdrawal is not a sign of lack of love. It is a protective mechanism. They respond to the vulnerability and terror of attachment needs by shutting down and withdrawing. They respond to the terrified attachment cries of their anxious preoccupied partner with intense shame at not being enough, and so they withdraw to protect themselves. . . .
There is such pleasure in love. Real, trustworthy love. Love where I don’t have to be perfect. Love where my grey hair and my messy room and anything I’m feeling insecure about is not a threat to my extreme worthiness. Love where I am known, and known, deeper and deeper as time unfolds. . . .
I love feeling safe and loved. Omfg I love it. I can’t even explain the pleasure of safety, the way my very bones sing with it. Learning to move through conflict with my partner, learning to move through my nervous system and return to my window of tolerance, finding myself in safety breathing against my partner’s body: there is nothing more beautiful than this. . . .
We know all about excitement. We know all about danger. We know all about fighting for the recognition that the ways we love are legitimate. . . . But we don’t have a lot of space to talk about the staggering beauty of learning to feel safe. . . .
Nature and nonhuman animals can be safe places to get attachment needs met.
—Clementine Morrigan, Love without Emergency
Music is the flashlight. I’m in the cave, but I see a shape, a path, a way out.
—Amanda Palmer, “The Cure, quickie shots from the tiny NYC show, and rescheduling Tarrytown & Fairfield”
Be gentle. Remind yourself that you are a human being having a human experience. You are not a failure or a problem. Many have walked this path before you and found solutions that work.
—Clementine Morrigan, Trauma Informed Polyamory
Usually when there’s a statue of some really famous person, and very often when that famous person is a saint, some spirit takes residence there. Well, with very old statues, it’s usually the other way around—there was a spirit there, and then someone builds a statue in its home.
—Rhyd Wildermuth, “The Giant by the Black Gate”