On trance, seduction, and the exquisite relief of being swept away.
There is a line from one of my favourite childhood movies, Hook, that has followed me around for years. Tinker Bell, to Peter: “You know that place between sleeping and waking? That place where you still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you, Peter Pan. That’s where I’ll be waiting.”
I understand the appeal of that place. There is a version of a man I meet there that I rarely meet anywhere else.
His face goes quiet first. The subtle tension around his jaw, the one he doesn’t know he carries, softens. His eyes, when they find mine, are no longer performing attentiveness; they are simply attentive. The competent part of him that runs the day, makes the decisions, holds the structure of everything together, loosens its grip without resistance. He is simply there, in the in-between: heavy, present, unusually candid and receptive.
The allure of trance, and of seduction itself, is often mistaken for disappearing into someone else. My experience is the opposite. The noise recedes, yes. The self-criticism, the anticipation, the endless negotiation with his own thoughts… it all fades.
But he doesn’t vanish. He arrives.
The version of him I meet in that space is more present, more focused, more coherent, more him than the one who walked in carrying the weight of his own structure and responsibilities.
That is where I love meeting him most. This is the version of you I find exquisitely moving to witness.
I love what becomes visible there, what becomes palpable when you stop bracing and become exquisitely responsive in my hands. That receptivity gives me something to work with, something to shape, deepen, reinforce, and return to.
It’s a strange thing to explain to someone who hasn’t felt it. There is a man who exists between effort and surrender.
Somewhere between the mind that manages everything and the mind that has drifted into a softer place, where his thoughts loosen, and my voice becomes easier to follow.
That’s where I find him.
And what becomes visible there? Trust, without performance. Desire, without strategy. The private self he protects so carefully that even he forgets it exists. The little involuntary responses he couldn’t manufacture even if he tried. The moment he stops trying to show me he’s surrendering and simply does. His breathing changes. His body becomes receptive while his attention becomes extraordinarily precise. Time does something strange. He stops anticipating what comes next and sinks into what is happening now. He looks free.
I think often about what it costs to live entirely in control, to spend so much of your life anticipating, deciding, managing, holding the shape of things together.
In this space, the space between us, that effort becomes unnecessary for a while.
He can stop producing himself and simply experience himself. I don’t create that version of him or train it into existence. I recognize him, and once I’ve met the man underneath all that effort, I study him. The tiny shifts. The involuntary responses. The particular way effort gives way to surrender.
Once I have witnessed the unguarded version of him, I learn the way back to him. And once I know the way, I can begin shaping what waits for him there.
Eventually, he will return to the day, to decisions and conversations and all the little structures that require him to be exactly who everyone expects.
But I will know the version of him I met in the place between. And the next time…
I already know exactly where to meet him.
In the ache that becomes anticipation. In the pleasure of being swept away. In the relief of letting go far enough that giving in begins to feel inevitable.
Somewhere between effort and surrender. Somewhere between craving and comfort. Somewhere between curiosity and the exquisite recognition of being seen. Somewhere in the luxury of lust, where dreaming still remembers.
That’s where I will always love you.
