The Fog - Part II
The following short story is part of a three part series I wrote for my own inner explorations inspired by Patti Digh’s structured writing practice.
I use this creative therapeutic writing personally and in my work with others as a way to befriend obstacles and transform them into light flickers meant to guide us more fully into ourselves.
Once upon a time there was a dizziness, a disorientation covering the entire earth.
It rolled in like a fog, seeping into, crawling over, covering the trees, stones, animals, and people. Some days it was imposing and dense, seemingly impenetrable. Other days it was lighter, more transparent, like a thin film that existed but was difficult to locate. Today it was heavy and thick, rolling slowly over everything, like an indifferent steamroller only concerned with smashing things flat.
Every day, the woman who lived deep inside the bones of a tree, tried to discover ways she could locate herself within the dizziness and disorientation of the unrelenting fog.
Most days, she would touch the inside edges of the tree with the tips of her fingers, repeating again and again “I’m here, in this tree, stretched out so my edges meet her edges.” Even though she could locate her edges as they met the inside of the tree, she still felt lost. As if she was here but not here, invisible, unsure of where the tree stood rooted into the earth, wondering how she got inside, and most importantly, why she felt so absent even though her fingertips were in contact with the inner bark of the tree.
But one day, she pressed her palms into the tree.
Pressing harder and harder, trying to feel the strength of the tree meeting her back. She pressed, feeling the energy move from her hands, through her wrists and forearms. A wave of terror rippled through her as she recognized that this was the only sense of herself - fingertips, hands, wrists, and forearms. Then there was nothing. No feet. No torso. No head. No center. No connection. . . all vanished at her elbows, disappearing into the fog. “I am only edges of hands. Disconnected. Dis-embodied.” She pushed into the tree, pleading for the tree to push back. She felt nothing.
Because of that, her breath swirled into a panic.
“Where is the rest of me? Where did I get lost? How do I know there was more of me to begin with? Maybe I have always been only hands attached to the inside of a tree.” Tears poured from eyes that could not be seen. Water rushed in, filling the hollow of the trunk. Rising and churning, the salty seawater drowning all that lived inside.
Because of that, her stomach began burning.
“Where are you stomach? I feel you somewhere, but I can’t find you.” Some part of her was able to view the scene from above. The tear water now a torrent coursing through the center of the tree. Whomever was witnessing called out: “Ok, I see two hands on the tree. The stomach has been swept through a hollow, and is being kicked about by forest goblins. They are bouncing it off stones, rolling it through dirt, and scraping across the gravel.”
Because of that, more tears filled the center of the tree, flowing from eyes that were nowhere to be found.
More and more awareness of how her body had been dismembered arrived. She was nauseous and dizzy. Disoriented. How would she find her way back? Was it even possible? Could she re-member? The overwhelm and panic began to crescendo.
Until finally, the tree pressed into the women’s palms.
Pressing, reaching tenderly towards the hands that seemed to belong to no one and the one at the same time. The wise old tree said “Stay here in my edges. I am here. Can you feel me meeting you here?” The hands could feel her pressing her smooth wood into the fingertips. The fear of being disembodied slammed into the woman again and again. The tree pressed her center gently but fiercely into the palms of the woman. “Stay here, stay here with me. Stay my love. There is a storm inside and out, it is savage and wild. It is blowing and tossing everyone and everything about. Stay here in our connection, in our edges.” The woman stayed as her edges met the inside edges of the tree, she began to feel a connection of bones through her heart. Each time the storm surged, threatening to destroy the bridge of bones, the woman stayed, pressing, rebuilding the pathway from tree to fingertips, through her heart, and on to the other side of the tree.
Ever since then, the woman who is lost but trying to find herself, presses into the tree and the tree presses back.
Sometimes softly, sometimes with all her strength. The fog keeps trying to sweep her away as it is unrelenting and determined. And the inside edges of the wise old tree stay steady, helping the woman locate herself over and over and again. From the outside in, knowing that one day she will know herself from the inside out.
References
Digh, Patty. (2008). Life is a Verb