The Space Between

Life is full of wondrous big events. We have our rites of passage like graduations. We have our travels. We have our amusements. These are the stars by which we sail. And we have our times in between the bright spots. Those times are my focus here.
Traveling helps us to see the spaces between in their full potential. While waiting for my transportation, and while being transported, I have crocheted a full lace tablecloth, knitted socks, conversed for hours with strangers, and read volumes of books. Any of those things taken as a project in my fully-scheduled life would have been impossible. In the spaces between, the impossible becomes possible.
It’s the little bite-sized portions of the spaces between that help them to be so powerful. The big things get broken down into small parts that we can tackle. Graduation, a celebration of completion, is the result of four years of spaces between.
I started traveling by seeing only my destinations. After enough experience, I realized that the process is actually the main event. I’ve seen some fantastic places. In between, I’ve seen that people are basically the same all over the world. I’ve found that down time is one of the most awake states I can have. I’ve learned to sit with myself, sometimes for many hours without end.
Cooking for my family, I catch myself expecting the meal together to be the event. Standing and chatting with my kids while dinner cooks, I see that I have narrowed my focus yet again.
Even the pastime of watching people is an activity unique to the space between. I like to see how people react, respond, and move. I really like to watch someone when they are watching someone else. I wonder who might be watching me watch. We are fun creatures.
The space between can be pretty uncomfortable sometimes. It’s the place where we are stuck, unavoidably examining our motives for what we do or say. It’s a place where we become powerless to make our wishes happen instantly, and so we learn how to handle our frustration, discouragement, and impatience. It’s where we learn to constructively amuse ourselves, an increasing concern in our leisure-rich society.
The next time I’m swamped and wishing for some down time, I think I’ll recall the masses of time I’ve spent waiting for the next thing. Maybe somehow I can transfer some of that vastness of time into a busier phase. And vice versa. The next time I’m trapped by waiting, I can remember the busier days when I would wish for a few minutes to just sit and zone. At the very least, remembering will help me to see that nothing lasts forever, and I can count on a change of pace somewhere along the way.
Waiting for a movie, my daughter and I invented a popcorn game. We giggled and fought over the popcorn, almost made a mess, and had great fun. Her giggle is the best. It was in many ways more satisfying than any of the laughs we had from the movie.
My greatest frustration comes when I am in the active phase and I encounter some obstacle that throws me into a space between. My plans are foiled, and I’m unwilling to look for that supposed hidden lesson. I don’t mind lessons, just Not Now. Isn’t that just why the space between is so good? If not now, when?