Einfühlung

I lean into the word, Einfühlung, hold the language Poppi so loved to learn. Use to wake up to the soft chimes of language classes on his phone. Soft chimes around the house.

Trav and I spent a summer apart when we were 23, ugh, so young. I thought that I didn’t want to be in a relationship, a loving fully committed relationship so young. So, we separated. 
That summer was the saddest I’d been till now, missing him always. I wrote to him, that I wished I could peel this soft layer of me off and hand it over to him. How I wished he could slip it on and over and just walk around, feel the love that traveled through all parts of me for him. Then, he could hold it, my love. Is Love tangible or intangible or beyond the two? Do words convey or constrict? Or, out beyond the two? 
If I could hand over me and he could step inside for just a moment it would go so much farther than my words, he would feel the length and depth, the limitless love we together created within me, constantly, always expanding. He would feel it. Hold it. It would move through him too.

I wanted him to slip me on and walk around in my love for him. I wrote this to him. 
Hallelujah we got back together. 
Kids. Great Love. Expansion.

Einfühlung: literally means “feeling into” and refers to an act of projecting oneself into another body or environment. It’s the imaginary bodily displacement (Versetzung) of oneself into another body or environment, which is aimed at understanding how it feels to be in that other body or environment. It’s the origins for the English word ‘empathy’ but, it holds a different space. And, of course, empathy is a different space than sympathy too.

Which, of course, Smashley and I talked about all three on our run today, as we laughed and cried talking about Big Trav. How much we love him. 
I hope he still unzips me and puts me on, walks around in the love I feel for him. I hope he walks around within each of us always and feels that infinite love. 
I hope we all lean into the capacity to feel one another.