NINETEEN

Chapter Nineteen: Still Water

It becomes easier.

Not suddenly. Not enough to notice at first. The resistance that once demanded adjustment loosens, just slightly, like a knot that no longer pulls against itself. Movement continues. The ground holds. Nothing contradicts the step.

I do not ask why.

There is a sense that things are arriving when they should. That effort no longer needs to precede outcome so aggressively. The sequence feels arranged, not imposed, as if cause has learned to anticipate itself.

I allow that feeling.

It carries a quiet relief. The kind that settles behind the eyes and softens the jaw. The body stops preparing for correction. Breath lengthens without instruction. Timing no longer feels earned. It feels given.

This does not feel false.

On the contrary, it feels accurate in a broader way. As though precision has expanded instead of narrowed. As though the need to intervene has been replaced by a deeper alignment I no longer have to maintain.

I move and nothing resists me.

Hardship still appears, but it has changed character. It no longer demands response. It suggests purpose instead. Delay becomes part of the pattern. Misplacement becomes preparation. Even error seems to know where it belongs.

I do not rush to adjust.

There is time.

The system continues without my supervision. Consequence arrives softened, rounded at the edges. Nothing breaks sharply enough to require immediate attention. Everything fits somewhere.

This is restful.

The earlier insistence on exactness feels excessive now. A kind of tension I carried unnecessarily. The demand to place weight perfectly, to respond instantly, to remain alert to distortion at all times. That vigilance fades.

Not completely.

Just enough.

I notice that decisions arrive less distinctly. They no longer separate themselves from the environment. Action blends with circumstance. Choice feels distributed across something wider than me.

This, too, feels right.

The language of effort thins. Words like correction, alignment, consequence lose urgency. They still apply, but only loosely, like tools kept nearby but rarely lifted. The motion no longer needs commentary to continue.

I trust this.

There is a sense of being held that does not ask for belief. It simply operates. I do not feel directed. I feel included. As if the path is aware of itself and requires less from me now that I have learned how to walk.

I stop checking my placement.

The ground does not punish this.

Time stretches. Not forward, not backward, but outward. Moments widen enough to contain whatever arrives. Nothing presses. Nothing insists.

I cannot remember when I last corrected myself.

That absence does not register as loss.

It registers as ease.

I remain inside the movement. It continues smoothly, without edge, without friction sharp enough to demand attention. The earlier severity recedes, not because it was wrong, but because it no longer seems necessary.

Everything is accounted for.

Everything belongs.

I go on.

• UN