Black, white, gray #215800

Darkness/light; dry/wet; here/nowhere; fear/safe – life seems to be taken on such contradictory terms.  Over the last few days I’ve been reading blogs and stories from the 215800 tribe, all of which are so moving.  Moving me, the writer and other readers, from one place to another.  The movement is a journey, a step.  Can we go from here to there, without touching the space in between?  I’m not sure, I think that no matter how short, there’s always an in between, it’s the formless, unnameable place often.

That in between is like the gray between black and white.  Even if we jump from one place to the other, there’s a time lapse which creates in between.  Even though time might be an illusion, we still, as humans, use it.  We can refer to the future and to the past, as easily as we can to the now.

I heard a story about  a man who was going through such awful personal pain that he decided to jump off the Forth Road Bridge.  It made me wonder.  What if he changed his mind, or it was changed for him, in the split second between jumping and landing.  He only shattered his leg so something intervened.  Maybe his unconscious mind turned his body sufficiently to help him land with the least damage.

How often are we put in situations which have absolutely no return.  There are truly very few.  Things will never go back to exactly where they were no matter what.  Even if nothing changes, everything changes every second, doesn’t it?  That’s why I don’t really understand the fear of change on a logical level.  I understand it though on a level of stretch, on a level where I’m pushing myself to go further, to try something I haven’t done before.  And now, on those occasions, I stop and ask myself if it’s right for me to do so.

I can feel disquiet in my heart which is different to the anticipatory nervous kind of feeling I get of the butterflies fluttering in my tummy  if I’m doing something new but right for me.

I answered a question on Facebook today, it asked Who Are You?  There are many responses to that but I let it sit for a minute, and I answered I’m peace.  I’m not sure that peace is exactly the word I was looking for but it’s close.  If I’m being true to myself and exploring new things, as long as I feel peace in my heart, I’ll continue.  If I feel that something isn’t congruent to my peace, I stop.

I promised to stretch myself during this project and today I wrote the first chapter of the short story.  I’ve never written a fictional piece before.  It was interesting to see the story unfold, to be in charge of what happens next, but d’you know I don’t think I was in charge of it at all.  Sure I mapped out the ideas, the characters and some key points, but when I sat down to write, none of what I’d mapped was used.  Out came this very different story all together!

Somewhere in between the kitchen table where I mapped and the desk where I wrote, was a space that changed what was to be.

I’ve surrendered gratefully to let whatever is in the space know better than I what is needed.  If the space is telling my body and that’s what I feel in my heart then I’m doubly grateful that I get a conscious reminder and a bit of a nod and a wink.  My guess is that we all have these we prods, it just takes us some time and awareness to tune into them.