“Well, getting out of the house on a daily basis is all good, of course…” Finn began. "...Especially as nature is luckily all around us in good old Stavanger. But it takes more than that to ‘connect’ with ‘nature’, as we say, and definitely more than that to connect with our own natures. Come, let me show you something.”
Finn led the way as they all walked over a heavy load of twigs that cracked underneath their feet, and arrived in an area with a higher concentration of birds united in song than the rest of the forest.
Finn placed his hands gently on Kaitlin’s shoulders. “Look!”
“Where…?” Kaitlin started to ask, yet immediately didn’t require an answer, as a sudden ray of golden sunlight snuck in between the high-rise trees and she was faced with a spectacular display of two small waterfalls leading into a small stream. The breathtaking view was further complemented by the skyscraper mountains miles behind them. What she saw looked as if it could definitely be of an area near a fjord, somewhere between Preikestolen and Kjerag, both of which were at least an hour-drive from town, as she knew from her and Paul’s several trips there. So how could this have been? Such exquisite beauty relatively so close to town.
All logical thought stopped there, as Kaitlin could now only sense her physical reality. She was still out of breath, and felt her jaw still lowered in amazement. She reminded herself she had to breathe, and took a deep breath –inhaling the wonderful aroma of pine and flora surrounding her.
She faced Finn excitedly. Seeing his green eyes light up further in response to her enthusiasm gave her a sense of familial closeness to him, as he gently removed his hands from her shoulders. Kaitlin imagined him as a fatherly figure who had just succeeded in amazing his baby daughter; and dared not to imagine a non-platonic alternative.
