Page 101 of Unclench Me Softly

“It’s not,” I answer, although I can’t say it with full conviction. “Probably.”

Jonah raises an eyebrow.

Jax sits up. “Oh gods, is it more herbs? Or is this the part where we drink fermented mushroom water and confess our sins?”

Asher kneels beside the box and carefully peels back the tape, lifting the flaps like the contents might be fragile or charged with sacred purpose. Knowing him, it’s both.

Inside are six hand tools, each carefully wrapped in cloth and twine. All clearly selected with deeply unnecessary thought. I can already feel the energy shift in the room, the inhale of curiosity, the quiet attention that means something thoughtful is happening, even if it came in bubble wrap.

Jax is the first to reach in. He pulls out a spade with a polished metal edge and a bright, almost comically heroic handle that seems designed for maximum dirt-flinging flair. He grins like he’s just been knighted.

Miles retrieves a slim wooden dibber, smooth and elegant in its simplicity, clearly chosen for efficiency and minimal emotional disruption. He nods in approval.

Jonah’s is dark steel, matte black, with an edge that looks sharper than necessary for herb work but suits him far too well.

Seb’s hand rake has a carved grip, burnished at the edges, the kind of tool you imagine being used in monastic silence under moonlight.

Asher’s is a hybrid tool. A beautifully overthought garden multi-function piece, part trowel and part scoop, with a warm wooden handle and a bronze head etched with a soft sunburst pattern. There’s even a small compass embedded at the base, as if he might get emotionally lost while planting and need help finding north. It’s completely unnecessary and also, somehow, absolutely perfect.

And then I reach in.

I pull out a trowel, technically, but this one is… mine.

The handle is wrapped in braided twine and shimmering thread. Tiny silver bells dangle from the grip, each one chiming softly with the lightest movement, like it was blessed by woodland spirits with a flair for drama. There’s a fringe of dyed feathers fanning out at the base, blues, purples, golds, and a small hand-stamped charm tied beneath the head that reads, “root with intention.”

It looks like something a forest witch would use to conjure basil under a full moon during an emotionally vulnerable solstice. In short, it’s perfect.

I turn it slowly in my hand, bells whispering against the silence, and glance at Asher.

He’s looking at his own hands, not mine, fingers worrying the edge of his mat, like he’s waiting to be told he got it wrong.

“Wow,” Jax says slowly, lifting his own and turning it in his hand. “Okay, credit where it’s due, these slap.”

Asher clears his throat. “I just… I thought it might help everyone… connect to the intention.”

“You picked these?” I ask.

He nods once, then finally looks up at me. “I just thought… if we’re planting something new, we should have tools that mean something. Yours is for ritual use. Obviously.”

I smile, a slow, aching kind of thing that spreads across my chest before it reaches my face.

“Obviously,” I echo. I hold mine up, and the bells jingle softly. It’s ridiculous. It’s perfect. It’s someI almost cry. “It’s beautiful,” I say, trying not to get emotional in a room that already smells like eucalyptus and unprocessed longing. “This is possibly the most unhinged planting tool I’ve ever seen. I love it.”

His cheeks flush pink, but he smiles back, and the air between us softens.

The others turn their tools over in their hands, passing glances, small nods, quiet amusement. The room shifts again. Not in chaos this time, but something closer to harmony.

We’re no longer just a collection of breathwork casualties and spiritual metaphors. We’re something else now.

Connected, grounded, and armed with garden tools and an unreasonable amount of collective emotional tension.

I clap my hands once, the sound bright and sharp in the breath-saturated air, and rise to my feet in a slow, sweeping motion that I hope still communicates “woman in control” and not “woman one seed metaphor away from a breakdown.”

“We’ll reconvene after lunch for the seed-planting ceremony,” I say, projecting authority through a voice that’s roughly two breaths away from collapse. “Hydrate. Nourish yourselves. Avoid deeply emotional conversations until at least your second protein source.”

They begin to rise, some slower than others.

Jax cracks his back and mutters something about needing to “ground himself with nachos.”

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