April 9, 2024
Boundaries
I woke up at three o’clock in the morning feeling wide awake, staying in bed thinking about my upcoming day, finally falling asleep an hour later. My wife and I had our customary coffee before sitting down to study and write. The morning was quiet, and I looked out the dining-room window while my wife prepared for work. Twilight was beginning and all the dogs were taking their after breakfast nap. After my wife left for work, I exited the house for my morning walk through the woods.
The air in the forest felt cool, but it was not cold. My mind flashed to my morning walks just a few months ago when I had to face the freezing temperatures. Spring, I thought, made for more comfortable walks. Before, a thick layer of trampled leaves, pine needles, and small twigs from fallen branches covered this trail. Removing all the debris left a quiet path, allowing me to move through the forest more quickly and silently. When I reached the end of the cleared area, my boots crushed the leaves and branches of the old trail. After walking in silence, the crunching and snapping sounded deafening. I looked forward to having all the trails cleared one day.
I made my way to Beaver Tooth Rock, where I carefully climbed up the large boulder, hoping to see deer in the ravine. This morning, there were none. The area was active, with small wrens and cardinals flying fast in the undergrowth of trees and tall brush. An American red squirrel climbed high in a tree and then jumped to an adjacent tree leaning in proximity. I took a few deep breaths and readied myself for the day.
The walk back toward the house was quiet. When I arrived at an open space in the forest’s canopy, I stopped to inspect a large deer feeder that stood in the open. While fidgeting with one of the stand’s legs, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. A small black animal scurried away, disappearing before I could identify it. Was it a large, dark squirrel, or maybe a blue fox? It could have also been a cat from a neighboring property, although the animal’s long tail meant it was not a bobcat, which sported a short, nubby tail.
Today, I had several meetings which kept my tush glued to the polished seat of my office chair. The schedule wrecked my lunch break, so I couldn’t go outside for any length of time. My work was usually predictable and forgiving, so an occasional slurry of meetings was nothing to get stressed over. My wife had a busy day working through logistics for a mid-rotation change. I knew she would be exhausted when she got home, so I planned to take her to dinner after work.
We had an enjoyable meal and talked about her recent run in with a verbally abusive rotation leader. The person broke social norms and my wife kept her cool, but professionally reestablished boundaries, which resulted in the person lashing out even more. She took action with her school and they removed her from the rotation, which took a couple of days to organize. During those two days, the instructor was very nice, which complicated my wife’s feelings about the entire ordeal.
I ran into this dynamic a lot during my career in law enforcement and as a self-defense instructor. When someone attacked another person, they were breaking social norms, something the attacker willfully did. But a person defending themselves had to take action to set the boundary back in place. This created a situation where one person willingly broke norms while the other person had no choice but to respond. This often made the defender feel angry at being forced to take action and awful for doing something that was outside their normal behavior. It was an interesting dynamic, and I found it important to recognize it was the aggressor who created the entire situation. Self-defense was a necessary response and not an outright attack. I suppose the mind had trouble separating these when a response required a forceful reaction. Perhaps it was good that decent people felt stressed about being aggressive. Maybe this was a part of what kept them polite.
When we arrived home, my wife relaxed inside the house while I went out for last light. The day’s heat subsided, and there were cool pockets of air throughout the forest. Instead of a chilly wind blowing on me, I was the one moving through it, feeling the intermittent balmy and crisp air. Dusk had settled in and the forest was going dark. The cleared trails, however, were easy to see, even in low light. On the north side of the empty crop field, I saw a few deer standing near the tree line. They were feeding and facing the opposite direction, too far to hear me while the wind was in my favor. I watched them for a few minutes before moving on.
While approaching the creek, I saw something splashing in the water. While it could have been a large frog, the undulating movements near a patch of floating grass looked like patterns made by a fish’s fin. By the time I arrived at the bank, the movement was gone. I made my way back to the house, arriving as the sky went black. I got busy with my evening chores, feeding dogs and washing dishes before taking a shower and crawling into bed.