Scenes iv: On the softness of the silk within

“Hold on”,

Stepping on a stepping stone across the water and tending a hand to her, after she’s climbed over the gate and taken a light unsteady pace towards him. There’s a cliff at the edge where the river water falls into a deep gash on the earth, resurfacing on the other side in a steady and bubbling stream, not high enough for thunder but high enough to be scared. He’s light on his feet, quick on the slippery stones, standing perched on their corners to make space for her, a little unsteadier, following softly behind. The branches of the trees in the heady late summer light extend their shadows across them, dancing back and forth in patches of gold and green and glints of dew drops from a late summers’ drizzle earlier in the day. The mist evaporating from the heat and lifting a sweet warm scent of honey and light spice from the bark of the trees, a damper freshness from the wet hearth in the river.

The next stone is floating above the water and sighs as he steps on it, to turn and raise his hand towards her, beckoning, ‘follow me!’. She’s still and watching, breathing deep, she doesn’t know where we’re going, and she doesn’t ask. She knows there’s a horizon beyond and the shadows of the stepping stones behind him as he turns are shining in the dancing, dappled sunlight. His forehead creases, his brows lifting as they meet at the centre between them, lips pressed together, his hand reaching to her. It’s saying, ‘come’. Lifting herself, her chest, breathing in and out her foot steps into the emptiness of the air, to fall forward and bring her weight on the moss of a stone that’s now — ‘have you any idea what you’ve just done?” — she quickly erases its disappearance; the stone is there, you can slip and fall, but it’s right here to catch you, the air itself.

The moss is spongy under foot, and quickly she realises she’s floating. The next one presents itself and it’s a rhythmic dance to step on. Her feet turn her and her arms extend in a circle and around to hold the balance as she steps on the next one, flowing behind and now beside her. Her feet know where to take her and her body moves with the current pulling her up and to the side and around, in a dance that can’t be known but can only be answered.

Her skin shivers in soft silks as the stream and the air lights the threads that it touches, her hands move to catch the leaves in the wind that dissipate in a warm glow, like the air’s embrace. ‘What are you playing?’ “I’m answering to the wind” ‘what game is that?’ “Its the game we’ve always been playing and keep playing still”.

The moss rematerialises between her toes, its cool softness yielding to her weight, embracing her feet in a ticklish lap. Her steps are light and one small push lifts her into the softened air, so she’s hanging from a tree branch upside down and watching now, far away, as the current slips and slides across the ground to melt into the lake below. As she lifts herself onto the branch he is right there with her; “well, hullo.” Sitting crosslegged in the nook of a tree, watching as the air cools her skin and her eyes light curiously on him, as if she’d never seen before, as if a babe newly born in wonder.

‘Oh, Hi’,

Gently, gently, he reaches down, to touch her hand. Her palm opens to hold him, her lips open and sighing,

‘How did you find me?’ ‘I don’t know’.

There’s so many ways to learn. Imitation, random variation, rigorous theoretical study and systematic application of a hypothesised action. But you always need to be responsive, it’s an answer to, not just a statement of.