We had a falling out recently. Nothing serious I thought, just the usual glacial silences, rejected touches, dark pauses in the ebb and flow of the world that come with the territory. Then it worsened – tiny cracks became gaping chasms, petty molehills turned out to be mountains after all. Not the fluffy mountains out of Heidi either – terrifying granite claws rending the sky, buffeted by screaming banshee winds and littered with dying hopes and dreams. We tried changing, doing things differently but no avail, our actions just served to illustrate the void between us. We blamed each other; I was too tired, had other distractions turning my head – lured by 27 fripperies, enjoying the feeling of power and control, another being under my thumb. Of course I took the moral high ground, it wasn’t fatigue on my part, I’m young enough not to notice these things, I said. It wasn’t me dragging us backwards I insisted, putting the brakes on despite my best efforts. I’d tried my best to help, lavishing attention and time but it just seemed to make things worse. Eventually we agreed to part. I was too tired to put up with the waves of storms and tantrums that broke over us, threatening to sweep us away. I took up with another quickly afterwards to just to get through the night. It was good, we worked well together but I knew deep in the cobwebbed corners of my soul that I wanted things to be simple like they used to be.
We left it a few days before we dared to try again, waiting until we were both ready to resume hostilities. Even then, on our way to try and patch things up the same old problems kept creeping up and ambushing us. It took time and patience before we both felt ready. Then¦then¦then¦things started to change. We began to work together again, moving as one through the sun-kissed evening. Despite the pain, silver shards of glass pushing into my core, despite the searing inside me, despite the burning, the flex and snap of sinews, despite all this we began to forgive, to forget, to bridge the gap between us. We sat at the top of a hill, the late evening sun bathing us in warm light, muscles cooling and contracting as the evening breeze dried the sweat. As the light began to fade the spark and crackle between us returned. Fleeting memories play now like a cinema reel through my brain. Gilded dust clouds scuffed from the floor. The silence as we floated on air before the scrunch of turf resumed underneath us. The sibilant tick-tick-tick as we glided through the darkening woods. Soft smells crept up from the verdant undergrowth around us – summer warmed foliage, the sharp tang of bracken and the dark coffee-aroma of the forest floor.
For all the time we spent apart, making up is sometimes the greatest thing.

photo: /images/fallingout.jpg
date: Sept 2003
author: Dom Perry