The distance between
View from Calloway Peak, Grandfather Mountain 2015
Bits of wisdom from friends, mentors, and poets have a way of circulating in my mind like fallen leaves caught in eddy lines, resurfacing at unexpected moments, reminding me to observe and listen to the currents of life’s teachings. One such phrase that has been arising recently addresses a way to approach relationships. It is simple, and yet seems profound in its capacity to shape the way that I live and love both others as well as myself:
“Hold the other person capable.”
These five words capture a way of being in relationship with others as well as a way of being in relationship with myself. If I am to live from a place of believing that others are capable, then I have to stop subconsciously pretending that I can predict the future, stop over accommodating the needs of others (or more accurately, my perception or projection of their needs), I have to speak directly, own my feelings, and risk hurting someone else’s. In a sense, I see it as bringing the concept of buoyancy to a relationship.
To be buoyant in a relationship we have to trust that the other person is capable of keeping themselves afloat.
There is risk, naturally, risk that the other person will not float, or will rely upon your flotation and cling to you rather than to themselves, or that they will be angry with you for being buoyant at all, resentful that you are not sinking slowly into the darkness or complaining with them about all the work that it takes to keep your nose above the salty water.
But there is also risk that they will demonstrate to you their own buoyancy, proving that you need not worry, stress, or fret over how you will keep them afloat because the simple truth is that you cannot keep them afloat, and that they do not need you to.
Taken a step further, you may risk the other person discovering their own buoyancy
... and what a gift that would be!
To hold another person capable also means that I have to hold myself capable, and that I want others to do the same. No more passive aggressive pity parties, no more needing someone else to make me believe in myself. I must trust in my capability to float, to know myself and not need someone else to give me a sense of worth.
When someone gives me the gift of holding me capable, I have the opportunity to rise to the occasion, to experience myself as a whole person, to know how fully I can show up in the world, loving myself, opening my heart, standing on my own two feet.
Two years ago my husband and I were asked to speak during the wedding ceremony of our dear friends… We were given the topic of growth and change.
It was interesting timing to say the least. We were approximately nine months into the most intensive period of growth and change we had known in our marriage to that point.
I won’t say: “no one told us.” I read and hear that line entirely too often: “No one told me – that marriage would be hard - about being pregnant - that life was going to be this way.” Some things are pointless to tell, because you just have to live them to understand.
One of the things we prided ourselves on when we got married over a decade ago was that we knew it would be hard. We knew that marriage was not a fairy tale; we knew that we were choosing a life of commitment at a very young age; we knew we would both grow and change. We knew all of these things logically, and yet knowing this does not prepare you for the ways in which you will evolve as an individual and how each new discovery of self will impact your relationship.
Growing Side by Side
Looking back I now understand that I had, over time, come to believe that I needed my husband in order to be buoyant. As I moved into my thirties and found a stronger sense of self, I began pushing my husband away, not in a terribly graceful manner- more like the obstinate teenager who doesn’t need help from anyone. But I did this in order to prove my own buoyancy. This was hurtful and difficult for us to understand, it led to us questioning our roles in each other’s lives, asking some of the hardest questions we have ever faced. It was chaos for a bit there, but ultimately it helped us to trust our own buoyancy and, in turn, to develop an even stronger sense of partnership.
We did not know all of this in time to share it all at our friends’ wedding; we were in the midst of learning it, and so in addition to our own words about choosing each other every day, we also shared the following quote:
Distance between John Rock and Looking Glass
“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke
I continue to discover ways in which loving the distance between myself and another can deepen our connection, can give the gift of seeing the other as capable and whole, and can remind me of my own ability to float.