The space in between

I've been thinking about the spaces in between, the silent pauses. The space in between where there can be hesitation, uncertainty, hope, procrastination, or maybe things we just can't know.

The space between jubilation on New Year's Day, celebration of a long-awaited football bowl game win. And a handful of moments later, a call from a telephone number that you know will bring news from afar, from hospice, that the end has come.

The space in between for a friend, finding a lump, and then tests and waiting and fear, and then knowing. What happens in the space between all that and the deciding to share that knowledge and fear?

We return back to wonder about these spaces, causing yet another pause. This moment of wonder becomes its own space in between. What happened in the universe and in us? How can we share our support for a person's journey, when we realize how far they've traveled without sharing it with us? Could we have been there? Could we have known? Could we have made a difference? How can we live differently? 

Should we? 

The spaces in between seem empty because we don't know what happened, and yet we what we do realize is that they're full, very full, of life, of impulses, struggles, sometimes just full of raw, adrenalized instinct. 

That pause, as someone tries to find the words to continue their half of the conversation. We ourselves clear our throats and search for words. That's a little space in between. And how much happens in that instant that we cannot even know, as we do it ourselves? 

So, too, yes, there has been a long space in between, here, filled with life, deep thoughtfulness and split instinct, struggle and celebration; plenty of adventures. In the space in between, I've thought of the stories that could evolve from these spaces -- my spaces -- how the words and ideas floated in my head, stories and threads. “What a great story this will make!”, I'd think, and I'd play with words for a little bit. Maybe the ideas and threads will come to together eventually with a definite structure, with words, pixels, text and images. 

Or, maybe not.

The space in between has been long. I have enjoyed just being in that space, to be truthful, living my life and not spending the energy to organize them in pixels and bits, letters and spaces. And at the same time, I've also missed sharing the stories and taking my place in this wide circle, part of a larger storytelling group.

And here, one more pause. Just after pressing the period key, a slight space in between that and reaching over my mouse, to click the “Publish” button. 

Then, *click*.

- - -  

On January 1, 2013, my Northwestern Wildcats won their first post-season bowl game in over 60 years. You know how much I love my Wildcats! Woohoo!
Moments later, we learned that J's mom had slipped away ... Peace.

Sending love to my blog buddy, Karen.

Eating ice cream

Thank you for the post, Joanna.

Make visible what, without you, might perhaps have never been seen.  
- Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer

~ ~ ~ ~

In my (blogging) absence, I've been

up and around. 

Doing the summer things that I/we normally do (and then some).

.

All the while battling oldandslow computeritis, which is my excuse for not having cleaned up and loaded pictures to Flickr in quite a long time (sigh). 

It's not like I've just been sitting around, 

 eating ice cream.

Although that's a mighty tempting thought ...

Enunciate

Okay! I'm back!

I know that I said not to expect that we'd go off on any big adventure. We sure weren't expecting to, but as it turns out, we did get away for some camping and scrambling. After talking about it for years, we finally visited Joshua Tree National Park. Since the park is easily the closest to us (2 hours), you'd think we'd have gone eons ago. The best J had been able to describe it is that there are 'piles of rocks that you can climb'. I don't know what exactly I was imagining, but by 'climbing', I was expecting, you know, technical climbing. There was this place, he says, called Jumble Rocks, and even that, in my very visual imagination, did not sound all so impressive. It might as well be MishMash Rocks, jagged rocks strewn randomly here and there. Never mind that I never did research on the internet to get a better description. Silly me.

Still, we had a few days off at the same time, so we figured, what the heck.

Hey! There are Joshua Tree forests! Hence the name of the park! (y'think?) After seeing so many scrawny joshua trees all across the U.S. Southwest, how amazing is it to see them, all so healthy; trees in fields all the way to the mountains? Joshua Tree forests! Don't they look happy?!



We got into the park and got our map and guide. I searched the map for the campground we were headed to and discovered that the name is JUMBO Rocks, not Jumble.

Oooooooh. JUMBO.



That's where we want to be, J says. Yes, I can see why. The rock formations are much more orderly than 'jumbled'. And there's lots of scrambling to be done. And look at how round they all are!

We later overheard that that weekend was the busiest for the park, but we managed to secure a campsite. We survived the crazy strong gusts that threatened to blown down our canopy and buffeted our tent all the first night, survived the hot days (90F), and cold high-desert mornings (down to about 34F). We were there for the full moon. We'd hoped to hear coyotes, but as it turned out, not even the neighbors were howling at the moon. We drove through 29 Palms, Morongo and Yucca Valleys and scrambled across lots and lots of rock formations.

Lots of fun. What an important reminder to always get an accurate understanding of a destination you've been avoiding. Or to take better care to enunciate. Or to do your own research.
Sometimes you really should just go.

 
Can't see the slide show? Click here to see it over at Flickr.

Remembering Norm

It's hard to imagine it's been two years since we lost Norm.
The evidence of the passage of time is plain enough though; the card from his memorial lies under layers of 5K training plans, postcards and daily quotes.

I've found that, much like what you experience when running, and we've all found, through just living and putting one foot in front of the other, that the tears and the sweat are all still salty, all still stinging and fresh.
But our hearts beat stronger and even more true.

Gone Running

I'm going to take a break from posting.
I don't have secret plans that I'm working on (I know how you think), exotic travels (you would have reason to think that, okay, yes), not even an intent for my non-blogging break, or anything like that.
It's not even a break, really.
It's not that I don't want to write.
I just don't want you to be holding your breath, waiting and waiting.

The end of our spring term is the middle of April. I'll check back in towards the end of April.
If you don't already, you might want to subscribe via a RSS feed reader, so you don't have to keep stopping by to see if there's anything new .. 

I *have* been running, and will continue to post ~weekly mileages and running-related thoughts over at Run Wendee Run.

See you in a few.

More of the orchids

The orchids, hanging out with the other plants.

Which looks like this:



from the inside. A rest (no running or walking) day.

And speaking of running, I'm posting weekly running updates at RunWendeeRun. I'm up to 40.9 miles for the year. 600 in 2012!