I coach, I help others to be well.
But others don’t help me. For some time now I have begun to resent them. And then there’s the article due on Wednesday, and I’m drained: me and my obsessions to serve, as if I were Mother Teresa.<\/p>\n\n\n
But today I am on holiday. I take my notes with me and stretch out in the shade on the lawn in front of my accommodation, a farming village along the Costa degli Etruschi in Tuscany. The article in a moment, now 45 minutes of oxygen break. This moment seems perfect: I aimlessly contemplate the clear sky and enjoy the contrast with the green; I breathe in the smell of cut grass: solitude and peace.<\/p>\n\n\n
It is two o’clock in the afternoon and I have focused every last ounce of attention on applying blue nail polish to the nail of my right thumb. Opposite the spot where I lay on my stomach a gravel path forks, along which a large wooden sign with the words ‘Health Path’ has been placed on the grass; next to it a sloping bench, also made of reddish wood.<\/p>\n\n\n
My gaze is drifting blissfully between the nail and the lawn when it is abruptly interrupted by the fuchsia nylon shorts of a woman in her forties. Bad thing about fuchsia, it’s a colour that makes me sick. And among other things, it tends towards red so that it hinders resting: bad intruder at the moment, but so be it. The chick has occupied the incline bench with a snap and started to puff in the sun in a rhythmic way, while repeatedly bending over to train her exposed abs. I count 20 puffs, then quiet, but she, not paying attention to the physical bustle, looks at me looking for a handhold to occupy the space of the empty seconds between sets with me.<\/p>\n\n\n
He peeks at his notes. “Do you do coaching?”
I nod.
“And what exactly do you do?” He resumes his bending.
I think about how to deflect without moving, and in the meantime I hear my voice answering automatically: “It’s not me doing. I accompany people, and it is they who make the changes they want or need to make’.
New gymnastic pause and no respite: “If it is they who do, then the coach is useless. Is that what you’re saying?”
I’d like to make a run for it but prying with my hands on the grass would ruin the fresh enamel, and besides I hate to leave work half done and at the moment there are still seven fingers missing. I have to answer and the least wasteful way is a nice catchphrase: “The coach provides a space suitable for making passes.”
“Passing??”
At times like this I would love to be a greengrocer, a doctor or a tailor. In fact, right now beautician would be even more useful. And in any case something where your work is so obvious and any enquiries so superfluous as to make the nuisance seriously embarrassed by his useless questions. Indeed, so much so that even the articles are useless. I feel a great anger towards this petulant interviewer. “Yes! Movements, paths, roads! They are steps of growth! Learning, choices, positive changes, no?” Unwittingly, I raised my voice and could not entirely restrain an irritated gesture, so I bumped into the enamel which now drips on the grass, drawing a thin blue artery.<\/p>\n\n\n
My tormentor has finished the fourth set. Still not satisfied, she gets off the bench and invades the space next to me. “Interesting,” she says, “and which pass would you like?”
I visualise my metamorphosis into cruel assassin, or steamroller but feel guilty. Inoffensive hare? Impossible and I can’t tell him anyway. I give up the fight, emit an enigmatic “Mah..” with a pensive smile. Turn me into someone who can take it? Difficult or in any case beyond my strength.<\/p>\n\n\n
I am finishing the painting of my left index finger and my sporty executioner plays the decisive move, perhaps she is intrigued by the ambiguous answer or, more likely, she has by now sensed my impotence and wishes to bring her sadistic game to apotheosis. She leans on the grass, looks at me as if waiting, but is silent. Oh God, what now?
I come to terms with that silence, disarmed, as if in front of a wise negotiator who forces you to make the first move. I weigh the possibilities: I don’t feel like getting up. Resist? Fill the void?
But she seems moved to pity and comes to my aid: “So tired…”
Is she talking about herself? Oh God help me, is she talking about herself… Or is she talking about me? Desperate I throw myself into this option and comes the surrender, I say:
“Yes! I am exhausted.”<\/p>\n\n\n
She must have been surprised by that sudden revelation because she looks at her chest interjectedly, sweat trickling down her neck on her tank top, also fuchsia, and back to me between hopeful and frightened:
“What do you think, will it be the heat?”
Suddenly I see her, I see us: two losers full of expectation on a restorative holiday, her busy with her firming cravings and me hoping I’ll get a good idea to close the damn article. Human cases.<\/p>\n\n\n
And I have to laugh. I could still stop and keep my composure only that my companion of misfortune now crosses my gaze and seems to have the same thought because she too holds back her laughter. It escapes us: we burst into laughter that we can no longer control, because it feeds undisciplined, and grows from her to me, from me to her, and the more we try, the more we laugh, first convulsive notes, then rhythmic, and finally tears and music, which resonates freely with everything there is. Even with us.<\/p>\n\n\n
I put my polish back on, sit cross-legged and hear myself saying, “It’s just that I have to complete an article and there is always someone who gets in the way, and I can’t find the concentration.”<\/p>\n\n\n
Maybe he understands: “Like…someone like me! Sorry, I’ll leave you alone.”
“But go on, I’m painting my nails, I’m the one who gets distracted.”
“And what would help you?”
“If you only knew! It never comes the way I want it, there’s always something wrong.”
By now I am a river in flood:
“It’s like I’m locked in a room and I can’t see the door.”
“I see. And how many doors are there?”
One, of course one! The right one, no? And then how many doors do you want in a room? But that question creeps up inside me and for some reason I give it a space of possibility:
“Boh?!” is the illuminating answer.<\/p>\n\n\n
I ignore my interlocutor and lie on my stomach, left arm at the nape of my neck and right arm pleasantly extended to stretch my torso, as I do in bed when I wake up. That’s when I see him. My friend must have realised she is no longer useful because she is still, at one with the blades of grass, and I am now doing it all by myself.
I am looking at the spectacular pine tree that shadows me. It starts with an unrepeatable trunk but halfway up it forks and doubles, and then again. Yes, because each branch is not enough and accommodates other branches, and together they become not one but many, many possible paths. Beautiful, ugly, right, wrong, perfect, imperfect? Who cares, but I gaze enraptured at branches, buds and green needles and pine cones and immerse myself in the taste of fragrant resin.<\/p>\n\n\n
“What wonderful strength this tree has,” I say.
“Yes” does someone who has been lying down like me “a great growth”.<\/p>\n\n\n
by Laura Ravanetti<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I coach, I help others to be well.But others don’t help me. For some time now I have begun to resent them. And then there’s the article due on Wednesday, and I’m drained: me and my obsessions to serve, as if I were Mother Teresa. But today I am on holiday. I take my notes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":118004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[131,112],"tags":[115,125],"class_list":["post-220124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eng","category-short-stories","tag-case-study","tag-eng"],"acf":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":220124,"it":118000},"pll_sync_post":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220487,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220124\/revisions\/220487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}