"How do you see nature"
"Cruel" she said in an unbothered manner.
"Do you want to explain?" I asked with an arched eyebrow.
"Why?" she said in a huffed voice.
"Because I am dumb I don't know why you think nature is cruel," I said in a sheepish tone.
"Why do I need to explain it, it's my thought that's just how I think" she was clearly frustrated.
"Because, maybe I will be able to understand you more, or you will find me a follower of your idea," I stated in a single breath.
sharing a glance with me, I saw her shifting her posture on my couch. Her eyes roaming all around the room before she said.
"It's because it's unpredictable, we cannot expect things from nature. If the forecast says it is going to rain, there are still chances it isn't going to rain. You get confused if you should carry an umbrella. Sometimes it feels good just hearing the sound of rain drops falling but sometimes thunder doesn't let you sleep all night. And it's the same with a sunny day, a snowy night. You can't like it because it's not always loveable."
I had many reasons to tell her how much more there is in nature to love, but I let her say whatever she thinks. Humans. Ridiculous, aren't they? A short life span and they pass it in search of peace. When they are the one destroying it. Creating problems and then solving. Being villains and heroes at the same time. We all are running in a maze, trying to chase the end of it. But what we all do is settle down in the end and tell others there is nothing outside of this, even if we never went there.
For the first time in our session I saw that Catherine likes to have eye contact while talking. That was powerful. To feel the energy of another person, while you are emitting your own. If only her mother ever knew, Catherine was going places.
"Did I say so much?" she said hesitantly.
"No, that was impressive. Actually, I never saw nature from this point of view,"
"Yeah, it's pretty dark," poor soul thought this was dark, in reality it was just her immaturity and nothing else. Her eyes were locked to the ground, but they weren't concerned. They felt calm, less disappointed. That was enough for today, to feel that much change.
"It's beautiful," I exclaimed.
"You think so?" she tilted her head a bit, in a questioning way.
" Of course, human thinking is always beautiful. They have different colors, and yours also has its own shade."
She nodded, her gaze was fixed to the ground.
Human growth is not a matter of growing to become an adult. It's about unwinding yourself, unfolding yourself. Understanding normality and accepting the complex parts. Until you don't get surprised at all.
I admired her little interest in today's session. She was dressed in a yellow sleeveless top, with a white short. Just a little bit interesting or maybe it was coincidental, but she tried to dress according to the place. Her short hair was messily tied in a ponytail. As for me, I did spend a good forty minutes choosing what to wear. In the end, I appeared in a beige colored linen T-shirt. With a dark brown short. With beige colored sandals. I had carefully pushed my hair to the side with a gel, to avoid a mess since the blowing of wind could mess it up.
"Isn't it perfect, calm, quiet and pretty to the eyes." I admired the view in front of me.
"What's so special about today's session that you are doing it on a lakeside" she expressed her curiosity.
"Oh that-yeah I wanted to show you why I think nature is beautiful." her facial expressions were clearly dulled, not expecting what I just said.
"So you want to prove me wrong," I heard her scoff.
"You should have told me that, it hurt your feelings" she said in a single breath.
"What hurt me?" I questioned.
"My remarks about nature, that it's cruel." No surprise, she was going through puberty.
"Catherine! It didn't hurt me, expressing your point of view doesn't hurt anyone and we shouldn't let other views get to our heads. Respect is what we do when we listen to others. Sometimes we are convinced but sometimes we understand each other and that's what is important." I felt her expression as transparent as the lake was in front of us. Cool breeze, soft sunshine making the atmosphere cozy. She stood up;
"Can we take a walk?"
"Yeah, of course." I stood up with her. And we started walking along the side.
"Are you okay, if your friends are not the same as you, I mean their likes and dislikes." she shrugged her shoulders, maintaining her balance while walking along the thin line.
Friends. What are friends? an attempt to not to be alone or to know other souls. To mix yourself. To fade the world ugliness a little bit. Is to be yourself in front of them or to make yourself appear like them.
"It makes us more observant. We can see diversity in humans." I answered her, trying to watch her movements more keenly.
"Isn't it boring or how long you can be friends with them if you guys are not alike," she told me her confused thoughts. And I watched her feet stumbled in front of me, but I gripped her with her shoulder;
"For how long can you pretend to be similar, when you are not yourself? You will stumble at some point or another'' I pointed out, losing my grip on her shoulder when she stood back to her feet. "I knew, I was never gonna make friends. I am too-" she sighed, "vague, unreasonable". I decided not to respond to her immature thoughts, "Do you know the theory of evolution, not that humans were monkeys, but the earlier one? How fishes came to land."
"Really? I thought they were always like that." We were now walking on the bridge to see the other side, it was more comfortable to walk and I was less concerned about her now.
"There was a time when all life existed in water. Well there were not the most ancient times like there were prokaryotes before them. So all the living things were in water. But it became crowded, fishes used to jump to neighboring lakes, sometimes they had to crawl, if it was far and the nature evolved small feet, that gave birth to reptiles and -" I nearly jumped off, landing on the ground from bridge it was high enough to make you jump on ground, I turned to give her support which she accepted taking my hand and stepped on ground safely. "Then? "she said, "hmm?" I responded, "what happened next?" She reminded me where I left, "yeah, after that amphibians were born who were partially dependent on water. But mother nature continued evolution and reptiles emerged who were totally independent of water. Also plants started growing on grounds due to respiration of these organisms, and oxygen was successfully staying on earth's environment. That was the reason for the origin of the most advanced class of animals, what we call mammals. And humans are also part of that class, we evolved later," I stated before finally sitting on a rock. However Catherine's reaction left me speechless, "WOAH, that was-" she sat beside me, "Something. It's beautiful, yeah. I am totally convinced," she was impressed, and it felt good that she was interested in something. "It is beautiful. Fishes fought for territory, jumping out. We don't know how many of them would have died, in the process. Maybe there would be many other fishes who would have not agreed, some would have understood and many would be convinced. And it proved they were on some point. Like they literally made earth, what is it today? So it was not in vain." I threw a pebble in the lake and watched the ripples it created in the relaxed water body.
"With that," I continued after a pause, "Nothing in this world is in vain. Fishes, frogs, animals. Our existence, -" I threw another pebble. She was listening and nodding to me. Her eyes were on the lake. I continued, "How we live, how we do things, how we perceive things no matter how weird they think it is, it is meaningful. Just like our thoughts or how you think nature is cruel or your-," she turned to me, she wasn't expecting this but I had to bring this up, "Your life. Nothing is in vain. Everything has some point."