In Between Spaces

“Some days I wake with a cloud around my heart, and it dulls everything except the weight I carry deep inside. Yet, just because I can’t make it to the light today doesn’t mean that the light has vanished.” Mark Nepo

"I'd Rather be in Paris"Waiting for the light. On this day marked Holy Saturday, I sit in this space in between. For the Christian world it is the time between Jesus’ crucifixion and his rising. We want to rush – to hurry through the space and say, “He is risen.” I want to do the same in my personal life. Perhaps I am the one who needs to rise and meet myself – to let go of expectations and know things may never change. I may never change.

I sit in this space between here and Paris. It’s so close I can almost taste the fresh croissant and roasted chicken, served with a pichet of rich red wine. I can feel the moist air from the Seine and see the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower. I can smell the descent into the Metro and witness the cornflower blue sky over Notre Dame when I rise on the other side. I feel my feet hitting the cobblestone pavement and notice the tension slipping away from my shoulders and brow.

I hear the laughter and the patois of the lyrical language, snippets of it making their way into my own understanding. I can see my body seated at an outdoor café – my journal and a glass of champagne close by with dreams and thoughts waiting to be captured.

I don’t fully understand this call to Paris – the city where I sometimes feel dowdy and lost, but mostly believe I am extravagant and seen. Women do not disappear in Paris like they do in America.

I feel cherished there – mainly by own self. It is all an adventure – a new park waiting to be discovered, a patch of grass beckoning for a picnic, a fountain singing its chorus just for me.

Today, I sit in this space in between. The place of death and rising. We die a little each day with harsh words, careless misunderstandings, and boredom… And we rise like blooming flowers and soaring rainbows when we know that we are loved from deep within and that the world is our playground. Mostly we stand in the in between and beg it to go away, to hurry and be resolved.

The resolution is in the waiting. It is also in the remembrance and anticipation. It is hearing the church bells in the distance and seeing the risen Christ in our own lives. It is pondering the places we have died a thousand deathes—by words, pain, fear, abandonment—and remembering we have somehow moved onward.

We wait on Holy Saturday, but truly we wait every day; excepting, of course, the times when we choose to remember and know that the only way to live is to simply be alive… to cherish each moment… to allow the quiet stillness to wash over us like gently falling rain… and wait without forcing anything at all. To know from deep within that even though the light is dim today, it has not vanished. The sun always rises.

What can the in between offer you today? Are you willing to stay without rushing? To remember without pushing forward? 

Comments

[Cynthia]

Your words are alike a breath of fresh air - always joyful no matter what the topic! In this particular post I caught myself thinking: I need to share this with my daughter ..or I need to be sure my granddaughter reads this ..or my friend ..etc. etc. But what dawned on me is that "I" can take this all in, just for me! When you speak of the delight you find in Paris, and it beckons to my own sense of adventure …then it's for me! When I read your words about how we die a little each day ..through "harsh words, careless misunderstandings, and boredom"…they are for "me" to know, and absorb, and use as my own springboard! I'm so appreciative of this new perspective I've stumbled across today. Blessings!!