Falling into Contact

M falls into contact- falls back into a resting on my support as ground. Time passes and the contact is felt- experienced by both him and me. There is atunement- feelings of togetherness. I feel in some vibratory pulse in my flesh, that I want to care for him. I can imagine him in his propensity for growth- adaptation; in movement, expressiveness- yet the fullness for his being is held deeply and safely within his body as he now is. It is this felt sensation- this inter flowing of viscosity that enables me as Carer to imagine him as the condensation here and now of all that his life holds store for him. It is a storage- an autumnal harvest- a seed-pod internalised and it's explosion as co-existing in and through one another. Whether he walks, talks, smiles, laughs, squeezes my hand, an object, plays with another child, makes friendships is the observational and behavioural details of a running life that may or may not manifest. The imaginary holding of capacity is not scripted in the details of how something unfolds; it is in the potential fullness- a fullness that is specifically positioned- right here, right now in the particularity of this moment of actual contact.

And because his body has let go into the support of my holding; the weight has actually and really dropped deep into our shared ground, there is this ability in me- and him? across our differences of cognitive, neurological, muscular, age systems to relate- and to relay- in this global imaginary space, all the capacity before it ever arrives. It is simply this pause-gap- this waiting- this momentary suspension- of dropping down- of touching in, that allows for a buoyancy- a lightness- an effortless floating, rising in the space between- like a light balloon that floats across our shared attention- a visionary nebulous sensate marker- that is continually shifting - in the near distant space that joins us in  each of our wider capacities beyond our bounded selves- yet that depends on- demands- the imperative of a care-nurturing contact that is truly met- an appointment that is kept- where bodies for an instant flow together and remain that way for long enough in order to touch base- to feel  the limit point- the demarcation and point of stoppage as one directive comes up against another and two organisms- the Carer and the Cared For- truly meet and receive one anothers gift to one another- and so in that moment- through the ever-inceasing duration of moments that create time and distance, we know what it means to merge and in that very moment we know how to utilise that greater ground in order to bounce, spin and ricochet out into our individualities in our creative, functional, perceptual and communicative dreams through which we weave an environment of togetherness and apartness.

This splaying apart only to weave and knot together again and then this continual stretchiness as the doubled-up fibres that we build together support more and more Independence and the connective tissue becomes symbolic, playful, transitional- (Winnicot) in our voyaging and return- is what allows for "Affectional bonds" that take us through life. (Bowlby)

What it is I feel; as M lets go the tensile holding of his spasmic body and incrementally bit by bit, like a water fall touching down, is this probing and rooting deep into my being. It affects me and allows me to infitessiminally adapt and mediate to these falling groups of tensile muscle and contorted fascia. And as incrementally I relax and make space for this tempered falling, so portions of his body fill out into their natural shape and capacity, he takes space for himself in the time it takes to land in contact to a receptive ground. And in this receptivity and co-adaptation there is air circulation; the natural rising and falling of the breath and it begins to build into tensile vortices's; to release into sound-waves and to settle again into silent breath.There is anxiety, despair, pain, joy, playfulness, celebration and beauty closely tumbling and and out of one another. Out of this background re verb where we join and counter-point in spliced tempo and harmony, a sound texture grows and I find myself in a song that is not so much improvised or made up on the spot as being simply the audible outcome of  this on-going atunement that is occurring on the level of blood, breath, bone, flesh, hormones, neurological processes, visual circuits, kinaesthetic and visceral  affectivties, smell and touch.

And it is the beginnings of this translation from the arrived-at-touch that lingers on through time into sound waves, and feeling emotions, calibrating as facial expressions and then as gestural pulsations; opening and closing the hands bringing them together at the chest and apart again and then the gradual and playful interaction of our limbs as mine; through the mediation of my hands,  hold, support and wait for this touch arrival; for a slight contraction and then for a release out into movement as the patterning and co-patterning of imaginary diagrams that simply open into actuality out of the held propensity of a system present to itself.

This propensity for movement is always resting on the near invisible ground of a Care Connection that attunes and adapts making the propensity to move form out of a need; for comfort, nurturing, warmth, support and the demarcation of self at the firm holding border of another, a reality because it is met in the moment that it is thought. Like Winnicot and his work on baby and mother early interactions; where the breast is always angled in just such a way that it reaches the pursed lips of the baby just as its hunger wells up in this act of pouting and probing outwards with the lips in this rooting activity- so this is extended endlessly into every other gesturing out. And so the imaginary space and the actual space of contact merge and co-formulate around and through one another.
The actual and the virtual;  the heavy and the light are always co-influencing in our every gesture, posture and manifestation as patterns of becoming (Deleuze) that grow and die like sparks from the embers of a fire that are procreating out of one another in a continual feedback loop.

To be free is to experience this ground support fully and to let the body in its materiality then float above that - like the neutral gear of a vehicle that is primed and alert- clear yet rested in this propensity to move effortlessly and  as the fulfilment of the last piece of a pattern; where the tensile energy of contact builds and builds and then releases like the falling of a water-full into the happening of an action. Action, capability, movement, dance, music, is only ever that; simply the letting fall naturally out of an apt and fully congruent meeting; a touching in and in this way, a clear positioning out of which buoyancy and lightness in the world can effortlessly flow.

So it is with M, that as he sinks into the contact I feel him primed  for flow- resting really on nothing but believing in the ground and so light and ready- his limbs no longer meshed and bolted into place around a riveted torso but a recalibration of  each part in versatile  connective patterns of redistribution- that are alive, awake to  changing conditions and reformulating on each new pulse of breath; a breath that is flowing into a wider sphere of patterning.

Through the body and its release into contact the imagination is set free and so the limbs become articulate. Sound follows and the heart opens wide because it is aptly placed in the widening space between this safe contact. The world opens up from out of this single point and our perception flourishes on the journeying of our bodies set in motion and deeply able to rest with another.