New space is opening between stories.
The space between stories is more inviting than the spaces of domination/subjugation we’ve spent our whole lives in. It is less nerve-wracking than the shifting sands and slipping substrate of a world undergoing involuntary transition.
The space between stories is neither bleak nor bright, which makes it a perfect place for “dark optimism,” and grounded, active hope. As our eyes adjust to this low glow, we see that enough is plenty and plenty is enough. We remember that seeds remain alive in the cool dark, that they require light, and sometimes fire, to germinate.
The space between stories is bounded but not closed. Knowable but uncharted. A ravine with narrow but traversable banks just above its river’s surficial edge. A two-sided shelter with a slatted roof. A loamy trench loosely covered with slowly decaying brush.
From the space between stories, we can see the sky.
We can feel small and young among the stars.
We forgive ourselves for mistakes made and harm caused during a particularly rebellious and ungrateful adolecence. We can hold ourselves accountable to the loving labors that increase aliveness. We can commit to the kind of caring adulthood that would allow us to eventually become ancestors. Good ones.
We can change our relationship with the future in the present.
The space between is large enough to hold all who wish to enter, so long as they promise to cherish each other. It is solid enough to withstand the wild dancing of our radical imagination, so long as we move with each other. And it seems suited to ecstatic experimentation, so long as we’re honest enough to admit when our ideas aren’t as good as we originally believed and persevering enough to try yet another something else.
The learning that is most needed now will happen in the space between stories.