A walk in the park (HAZEL AND MARTINA (and Teddy))

There once was a time where every aspect of nature felt so vivid that Hazel could practically taste the earthiness of the newly cut grass in Paendley park. Or when the wind carried its scent along with the aromatics of spring flowers or the briskness of autumn leaves it awakened every fiber of his spirit to a point where he was trembling with unused energy. And energy was everywhere even on days like these, a mild spring monday a few hours before noon. From the soft creaking of the lake, the breeze from a bird flapping its wings or the sun warming his face, everything had the power to be both the most brilliant and vibrant sensation to an overpowering onslaught of input that made it hard to even breathe right. But of course, that was many years ago. The park was still beautiful and nature was still amazing, but the colors seemed dull in comparison to the richness of being unmedicated as a godia. It was, at the end of the day, for the best of course. Trading in the life and freedom he had now for the shitshow that was the GW institutions  didn’t exactly sound appealing. Besides, he still enjoyed the park. And it was shaping up to be a beautiful day. The sun was shining and the weather was so mild that there was barely any need for a coat.

A proper spring day like this made the people of Ilomar City seek out a bit of sunshine. From students, to dog-walkers, runners and a group of preteens playing soccer who were more than likely ditching school. And, of course, Hazel and Martina on their bi-annual check-up that Hazel was still of sound mind. Not that there were any reasons he shouldn’t be. It was mandatory as a godia in his position. There were many mandatory things in Hazel’s life now. He didn’t dwell on it, as the dog Teddy tugged on the leash, wanting to examine a scruffy looking squirrel who was currently shifting through the remnants of somebody's long abandoned breakfast.

“— So work has been busy,” he said as he continued onwards, Teddy following his lead. He was currently updating Martina on his life since the last time the two had met. There had been a growing number of cases lately, especially as he started to get a better reputation amongst the upper classes of society. From bitter married couples keen on proving the others infidelity, to larger workplace disputes. His job was certainly never boring. “And Bianca and Manuel have set the date for the wedding to July next year. So that’s something to look forward to,” he added, smiling, a glint in his eyes as he looked at Martina, as he talked about his younger sister and her fiancé. “Vuelua isn’t doing so well. Arthritis. Nothing serious, but something to keep an eye on."

Of course, life meant more than just what was objectively happening. He had come to learn after many years that a simple ‘I’m fine’ wasn’t an acceptable answer in a setting like this. So while things were, objectively, pretty good, it still meant he had to put more words into what he was actually feeling these days. And how was he feeling? Well, he was really just fine, fairly neutral, pretty alright overall. That didn’t mean that things were perfect. It just meant that he had very little to complain about. Objectively. But that was just part of him that preferred to wipe anything less than ‘alright’ under a rug and to not burden anyone with it. So how was he actually doing? Well. He licked his lips, a hand carting through his hair. “I guess there isn’t so much new going on since last time,” he said, shrugging. “Just sort of in the same routine, it feels a bit purposeless. I could probably stand to challenge myself a little more.”

For a chronical people pleaser, Martina had a bad habit of always being out the door at the very last minute. She had figured out techniques to defeat this habit, and in most situations she would end up overcompensating by arriving at her meetings way too early, leaving her standing semi-awkwardly for 20 minutes before it turned socially acceptable to actually show up.
But with people and events where she felt more comfortable, those techniques didn’t really work, and she was yet again having to rush out the door. She was rarely late, but always barely on time.
This had been the case today as well. Having to meet up with Hazel at 10AM at the Paendley Park only around 5 minutes on foot from her family home, Martina was of course running around the house at 9:54AM to get her shoes and keys and everything else she needed.
Her vuelua had been sitting at the kitchen table with the chair slightly pushed out and angled towards the chaos, watching her granddaughter more than the Sternian crossword in her hands.
“En ciclo sio rezagi?” she asked her granddaughter, a slight chuckle in her voice even though she had tried to sound reprimanding.
”No rezagi,” Martina as she put on her lightweight cardigan. It might be sunny outside, but it was still early morning, and she wasn’t going to get distracted by cold arms when Hazel was talking. “Al verdanen salo ise paser.”
“Hazel asta?”
“Sí.”
As expected, Vuelua’s eyes lit up and she let the cross word magazine drop into her lap to raise her hands in delight. “Graciño varilo!” she said, before sending kisses with her hands towards Martina, “Ayal qui teniarzaen entrelumí.”
Martina’s smile grew, even when she was focused on stuffing her keys down her bag while also getting the bag strap over her hand. “Sécon promisel, Vuelua,” she said and sent a kiss back at her Vuelua. She was right at the doorstep, already with her mind out the door, when she heard Vuelua’s voice again: “Largen varientén capazo hazer.”
She rolled her eyes at her, but only a part of it was out of genuine annoyance due to her own impending lateness, the rest was with a smile. ”Ajá, Vuelua.”
Her grandmother went back to her crossword and Martina stopped in the doorway, facing the small retablo – devotional painting – of Elios. In this painting, he had taken the shape of a herd of wild horses, galloping through the beach hills of Costa Sterna.
Martina made herself take a moment to breathe. Her hand found its way up to one of the necklaces that rested against her chest. The necklace with Elios’ symbol.
Her exit prayer was fast-paced, under her breath, perfectly executed, as she had said it every day her whole life: “Miendo sustros dormen lloye, chispien contenide. Pejamí mi caminen incider qui vuelo.”
As I leave our home, I carry your spark. Let your fire light up my path.
Even after all those years, Martina still felt a slight flutter through her body when saying those words. Vuelua had always told her, that that was the fire of Elios, she felt. On her good days she believed it.
“Byyye, Vuelua!” she yelled towards the kitchen, hearing her Vuelua yell her goodbye back at her, before closing the door and hurrying towards the park.


Yet again, she had managed to be on time despite having to rush out of the door. Of course, she had only be able to make it because the park was so close to her home. Had she had to drive to her office, she would have been late for sure. But she and Hazel rarely met at her office anymore. Either they went out for a coffee, or they went for a walk just like today. It was unconventional therapy practice for sure, but so was the fact that she had become friends with him outside of therapy as well; which Martina would never do with any of her clients today, but she was glad she had done it with Hazel.
However, the walk in the park hadn’t been an idea that came to her due to their friendship. It had started as a way to ease up the tension that came from Hazel having to sit in her office and open up about issues that he had been obliged to talk to her about. It all had felt too forced, so the walks had been a nice change of scenery. Making the therapy sessions a bit less clinical and a bit more relaxed and natural. Since then, they had found out – among other things – their common like for being outside in nature. So it really was a good alternative all around, despite its unconventionality.

Martina had mostly been listening to Hazel talking, interjecting with a relevant comment or an inquiring question. She nodded along to his updates in a soft motion, her eyes mostly focused on him, a small smile on her lips that was an intermediate between her therapist-smile and her more natural smile that she carried among friends.

“How exciting,” she said in regards to his younger sister’s wedding date, but Hazel then went on to tell about his Vuelua’s arthritis and Martina winced in sympathy for the discomfort the woman might feel. “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope it doesn’t trouble her too much.”

It was nice to get an update on Hazel’s family’s life and if anything, Martina knew how family could feel just as important as one’s own life. But she was waiting for him to talk about himself and how he was feeling. That was what this meeting was for after all. She felt no need to pressure him, as she trusted that he would ease himself into it. Which he did, and Martina listened to him speak, nodding along to what he said as to show him that she paid attention. His reply pleased her. Not because of his feeling of purposelessness of course, that wasn’t nice for him to feel, but because of how he had words to describe this feeling as well had felt comfortable enough to speak those words out loud. Even better, he already had a suggestion for ways to deal with the struggle he felt, a sign of how far he had come. In former sessions, Martina had commented on each time Hazel had done this, making sure to praise him for his initiative and reflection. Now, it was more a given – although not something she took for granted – and she let it be a natural part of the conversation without mentioning it.

Instead, she said: "I think the feeling of purposeless might be a good sign – it might be a way for your Spirit to tell you that you’re ready for something. Either the next step or something new entirely. What do you think of that?” Another question – a reflection she wanted to provide Hazel with: “And in what ways would you consider you could use the challenge?"
Before he could answer that, she leaned in slightly and smiled up at him with a friendly gleam in her eye. "And remember,” she added, “that we're speaking of challenge that produces growth, not challenge that knock one down.”
One of the things they had discussed many times before. The balance between challenging yourself enough to feel a sense of growth and purpose and challenging yourself in ways that could turn out self-sabotaging due to it being more demanding than given – or on the behalf of someone else’s expectations.
She leaned back again and awaited Hazel’s answers, giving him time to think but not trying to hand any answers to him.

Translation of Sternian conversation:

For not the first time, Hazel was grateful that the setting for their sessions were unconventional. He felt more at ease in nature, with a friend that he valued, than he did in an office across from a stranger. He felt less put on the spot. Of course, it made perfect sense that the kind of friendship he had with Martina wasn’t usual. It could easily turn into something unhealthy. But as it were, Hazel was in a good place, the need for a mental-health checkup was simply required by law and only twice a year. So, he didn’t think much of it – their strange dynamic.

But even then, therapy would never exactly become easy. The way one had to constantly second-guess all immediate reactions and not only figure out where emotions stemmed from, but reflect upon them and then even articulate them. Hazel had gotten better at it over the years, it wasn’t any longer a good 50 minutes where he stubbornly insisted he was fine, while waiting for the opportunity to go back home just to lay down on the floor and wait for time to pass – again, he was in a good place, much better than he had been ten years ago. It was a hard lesson that he had had to learn, things rarely just went away by ignoring them. Which really was the bane of Hazel’s existence, because ignoring things was easy. Working to fix it, that was hard. Though, it was worth it in the end, it meant growth and that was a good thing, because that meant he could be where he was at today. Things weren’t perfect and that was okay, they didn’t need to be. No one was happy all the time. He didn’t expect to be. As long as he didn’t tune out of reality and he actually had his emotions with him, whatever they might be, then he was doing okay.

Martina proposed that the feeling of purposelessness might be a sign that he needed a challenge. It definitely could be, Hazel did tend to stay in his comfort zone. But what sort of challenge? The thing was, and perhaps one of Hazel’s less than healthy traits, he liked things to be easy rather than hard. He liked his comfort zone. It was comfortable. So even if said comfort zone had occasionally meant a downward spiral which in turn had made living itself much harder than it needed to be, he’d still want to choose it. So, a challenge. Probably not a bad idea. He didn’t know what, but he also didn’t need to pick something right here on the sport.

“Yeah, probably,” he nodded, coming to a stop as Teddy fixated on a particularly interesting stick. “Dunno what that would be, though. But I’m definitely not against it.” He turned towards her, smiling. “I am very much open to what life throws at me.”

Then he shrugged, chuckling. “Not to sound like a broken record here, but I am actually fine. Whatever happens is welcome. Or well. Within reason, of course.”

Hazel wasn’t the type of person to eagerly agree to Martina’s challenging points. He always had a bit of reluctance in words, even when he genuinely agreed to what she was saying. It had taken Martina some time, quite a few sessions with him, before she had learned that it wasn’t just him agreeing just to agree, or well not all the times. She had had to learn the subtle differences in him agreeing because he actually agreed and him agreeing because it was easier than figuring out why he disagreed. And she had turned into a bit of an expert in that regard, in a way that it now wasn’t even something she actively did, she could just naturally hear the difference.

This time, Hazel was genuine, and that was evident in the way he added his doubts and reflected on her proposition – something Hazel also had learned over the years in their therapy sessions.
Martina listened to his reflections and nodded along to his words, not as in her necessarily agreeing to his point of view, but her acknowledging it. As a therapist, she had learned how to completely – or at least as much as possible – set aside her own values and instead fully acknowledge what she got told by her clients. Some days it was hard, other days it ways easy, and some days it was even something she looked forward to – getting the opportunity to forget herself for an hour to fully focus on helping someone else. Especially on the days where a burn-out was creeping inside of her; then it was much easier to be nothing but a guiding light.

Some of her therapist ‘façade’ broke, when she had to chuckle over Hazel’s addition of ‘within reason’. “Of course,” she repeated with the chuckle.

It was nice to hear Hazel reflect and talk while he reflected. And he came up with some good points, clearly searching deeper than surface-level into his needs. Martina was also certain that he was indeed fine.

Still, she wasn’t entirely satisfied. ‘Fine’ was only just. Martina had bigger ambitions for Hazel’s happiness.

“Being open is a very important quality,” she started out by saying, when Hazel seemed done with his reflections, “You've got a solid outlook by understanding that being open and flexible is the way to handle life's surprises.”

One of the few downsides to being friends with Hazel outside of therapy was that Martina was a lot more aware of how stiff and unpersonal her therapy speech sounded. It was probably a good thing that it was easy to differ between when she spoke to him as a friend and as a therapist, but it made her slightly cringe inside sometimes, when it was extra noticeable to her.  

“But what about instead of catching what it throws, you try to throw something up in the air as well?” she then asked him, smiling at him to show encouragement while challenging him a bit further, “I’m thinking that could be the assignment you bring with you after this session – when you get home, I want you to sit down and look at your life-categorizes” In one of the earlier sessions, Hazel had been told to categorize his life into different sections, which they had since used for several different reflection assignments. “- and then write down three suggestions for what you could actively do in each category to challenge yourself. The first suggestion should be something small that you could fairly easily incorporate into or change in your routine regarding that category, the second suggestion should be something bigger, that would have to stir up your routine more noticeably. And the third suggestion should be something big” She raised her hands in a half-circle as she said ‘big’ to really emphasize on the word, “that would drastically change that whole life category. Now, I don’t want you to actually go through with that third suggestion; it’s just an exercise that lets your mind go to places, we don’t normally consider. Go big or go home, you know? At least on paper.”

She knew that this was a lot of information, so she made sure to give Hazel a moment to register it all, before she smiled at him again and asked: “How does that sound?”

Of course, she had already taken note of his reactions while she had explained the assignment to him. But one thing was what she had noticed and could interpret from him, another thing was what he wanted to express to her.

Hazel cracked a smile when Martina chuckled. He took a certain pride in that, his ability to make light of most situations, making people feel at ease. It took the seriousness out of most things – not that this was the most serious therapy setup to begin with.

But what about instead of catching what it throws, you try to throw something up in the air as well?
Hazel almost sighed. There was always something to work on, something to be proactive about, which was a bit annoying but also how therapy worked, so he couldn’t really complain about that. And as much as he liked to tell himself that things would go away on their own, that rarely ever came to be. It would be really neat if they did, though, that’d make a lot of things a lot easier. But that wasn’t how life worked. She smiled encouragingly at him, before starting to describe an exercise to him. He rested a hand in his pocket, standing casually as he listened to her, smiling slightly at her exaggerated hand gesture at the last category.

It sounded easy enough. The kind of therapy exercise that he really did tend to put off till the last minute, but in the end didn’t take much longer than what could be done in less than an hour. In the beginning, he hadn’t really seen the point in reflection tasks like that at all – besides from just getting a chance to use his imagination. That was a long time ago, though. It could be fun, who knew? Some of the exercises had helped him sort some things out before, so it definitely couldn’t hurt. And he probably could stand to challenge himself a bit more. And a challenge didn’t need to be that challenging. Sometimes they could be fun.

“Sure, sounds doable,” he nodded with a shrug, after a moment of consideration. “I’ll give it a go.”

He crouched down, rubbing Teddy behind the ear as he brandished his new trophy-stick proudly in his mouth. Then he looked up at Martina, an easygoing smile on his lips. “Anyways, was that all on the agenda for today? What’s the verdict, am I sane?”

Then, a small coffee wagon down the road caught his attention, before looking back at Martina again, smile widening. “Want a coffee? Have you done something new with your hair, by the way? It looks great.”

Hazel said that her exercise sounded doable and he did so with a shrug that Martina had come to learn wasn’t a way of dismissing her work. In the beginning she had felt very insecure about Hazel’s seemingly lack of enthusiasm, thinking she was too pushy or missing her mark, and it could still strike her every now and then. But she knew better than to let it affect their sessions - she was a psychologist, after all.

“Great,” she said and adjusted her bag’s strap on her shoulder while Hazel crouched down with Teddy. She smiled down at both of them, the golden shepherd mix was too busy nuzzling its head against Hazel to notice her at the moment.

Hazel jokingly asked what the verdict was, and Martina instantly broke her therapist facade to, tongue in cheek, grimace. “Actually, I'm gonna have to admit you," she joked, though instantly felt bad about it. She probably shouldn’t be joking about that with a client. So, she added, with an almost apologetic smile: “But yeah, that was all.”

Then, Hazel suggested getting coffee, and the small coffee wagon instantly caught Martina’s eye too. Her smile widened, turning relaxed as the rest of her professional attitude left her expression.

“Sure!” Really, Hazel didn’t even have to ask. It was a tradition, getting coffee after a session. That, or going for a walk, if they had started with coffee.

They headed towards the coffee wagon, where a small line of people had gathered, getting their morning coffee. It was perfect weather for outdoor coffee - the spring sun casting a beautiful glow over the park but still not being too hot to not enjoy a hot beverage. Vuelua actually enjoyed coffee at the height of the summer heat, but for Martina, if the temperature passed 25 degrees, coffee turned undrinkable. But today, it was the perfect mix of warm and breezy, and Martina looked forward to enjoying it with a coffee in her hand, as she joined the back of the line with Hazel.

For a second, she looked surprised at Hazel when he commented on her hair. Then, she ran her hand through it, smiling at him. “Thanks,” she said and instinctively fluffed it a bit to make it sit more nicely, “I got it cut last week actually. I’m still trying to figure out if I like it or not. I can’t seem to find someone who can replace Paloma.” Her old hairdresser, whom she had gone to for the last couple of years. She moved out of the city last year. “Mom offered to cut it again, but she’s been so busy with work, and she’s started taking evening classes to get her Project Management Certification, and, oh, then last Tuesday, our dishwasher broke again, and she’s been tussling with that all week.” Martina shook her head with an overbearing smile. Her mom was the most stubborn woman she knew. “I even found a how-to article to help her, but she’s adamant on fixing it herself.” What was she telling Hazel about again? Oh, right, her hair. With an exhale, she concluded: “So, I decided to just try this new hairdresser instead, and I guess it turned out okay.”

She realized how much she had talked about nothing in particular. At times like this it surprised her how quickly the dynamic between her and Hazel could switch from her acting as Hazel’s therapist to her rambling to him about her life.

“As you can probably tell from my excessive talk about getting a haircut,” she added with a sheepish chuckle, “not much is going on at the time being.”

The line moved and it was almost their turn. Martina opened her bag to get her wallet but stopped in the middle of her movement to turn to Hazel again. “Oh, and my Vuelua says hi. She wanted me to ayos li teniarzaen entrelumí.” With a teasing tone, she added: “I think she misses you”