Tenderness has time here
A softening. [part one]
Dear Reader,
This is part one, of a pause piece, a tender offering, to be read unhurried.
I read once that we must consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit.
I’ve have never since it found me, let it leave me.
I’ve thought
long
and
good
about it
over and over and wondered if tenderness might have a chance at becoming an instinctive way of response if spaciousness could exist.
I’ve reflected on seasons of living where the confines of survival had me anxiously doggy paddling upstream, living far and wide out of the bounds of my own means where there was everything other then care, ease, choice or intention.
Is the cultivation, the making way for spaciousness,
a window?
a doorway?
A way in which we could move? A way in which we could truly live, be alive and let life touch our skin?
and in turn,
become softer things.
Is this an impossible pursuit? not because we hold reluctance to it, but simply because the scaffolding of our society has made such a pursuit an almost impossible choice, a luxury even. And if such is true, how can one untether, slowly, slowly, truly, truly, from the place in which one stands,
to add
even
just
a
tiny
new centimetre of spaciousness?
In lots of ways, this pursuit might feel like there is a losing of things before there is an opening of room, for it is true that things do need to be taken away for space to have its way—
I say and ask all this, not from a place of exponential earthly provision, but from a place where I’m allowing the taking away of some things
to make way for the softer things…
slowly, slowly.
This week via the conversation thread we explored Tenderness together. I loved how kind you were to commune with me there and lend your time and words.
A few things you said on Tenderness:
“I see it as permitting yourself to be soft and affected by your surroundings, emotions, input from the person who’s laying beside you, the subtle invitations to be honest and raw” — Joelle
“For me, it feels like the softness of meeting someone where they are truly at, like a cupping of the face, a closeness” — Erika
“Tenderness, it seems to be my deepest desire, to be more gentle and less reactive, accepting uncertainty and bowing out to the illusion of control and to kneeling to the river of steadiness” — Hayley
I sense a collective desire in the wanting of absolute submergence in our immediate.
It is all we really have.
So in light of this exploration of tenderness, I have thoughtfully collated from my archives some previous writing and photography that will offer up a softening.
Move slow.
* A beautifully curated ‘Tenderness has time’ playlist is provided at the end of this piece to carry you from here and through the moments of your day / night.
