The Space Between

The Space Between Dave Mathews band

For a refresher on the lyrics that I’m speaking of…

You cannot quit me so quickly

There's no hope in you for me

No corner you could squeeze me

But I got all the time for you, love

The Space Between

The tears we cry

Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more

The Space Between

The wicked lies we tell

And hope to keep safe from the pain

But will I hold you again?

These fickle, fuddled words confuse me

Like 'Will it rain today?'

Waste the hours with talking, talking

These twisted games we're playing

We're strange allies

With warring hearts

What wild-eyed beast you be

The Space Between

The wicked lies we tell

And hope to keep safe from the pain

Will I hold you again?

Will I hold...

Look at us spinning out in

The madness of a roller coaster

You know you went off like a devil

In a church in the middle of a crowded room

All we can do, my love

Is hope we don't take this ship down

The Space Between

Where you're smiling high

Is where you'll find me if I get to go

The Space Between

The bullets in our firefight

Is where I'll be hiding, waiting for you

The rain that falls

Splash in your heart

Ran like sadness down the window into...

The Space Between

Our wicked lies

Is where we hope to keep safe from pain

Take my hand

'Cause we're walking out of here

Oh, right out of here

Love is all we need here

The Space Between

What's wrong and right

Is where you'll find me hiding, waiting for you

The Space Between

Your heart and mine

Is the space we'll fill with time

The Space Between...

This dave mathews song has been running through my head for some time now, and always seems to in times of transition or where I feel confused, where I’m going forward, on a course that is inevitably the right one, but that feels more than a little scary or confusing, or mostly unknown. My friend John Richards has a song, called “Wonderful Unknown” that has resonated with me lately as well.

I’ve been in California for a week and a half, feeling as though I’ve exhaled for the first time in months, feeling like this a place I could be, a place that feels more who I am than the person who left Minneapolis, yet knowing I can’t possibly be here yet, as this place is not ready for me and I am not completely ready for it. And in the end not knowing if this is, indeed where I will end up….

I have been spending time with friends old and new, the past and the future all wrapped up in one twilight zone experience. E took me to wine country and the beach, showing me all the unfamiliar beauty of the terrain and familiar strength I know her to have which is all her own, and how much she has grown since last we got to spend a significant amount of time together. It was exactly what I needed to see, a friend who has left the cradle of MN and made a home and a life for herself far from where she started, and in doing so has grown into exactly the person she is supposed to be, which is herself, but stronger, more sure and confident, and every ounce as caring and wonderful as she’s ever been. (Thanks E, for everything; it meant more than you know).

I met Julie, a new Peace Corps friend, who seems so with it and like minded, as I imagine most of my peace corps comrades will be, yet with enough diversity of backgrounds to make things interesting. It is always so exciting to meet new people who automatically have so much in common and it has given me such pleasure to connect with the people whom I know I will come to depend on for so much.

Jack and I of course have been spending lots of time together, enjoying each other’s company, and tiptoeing around the obvious elephant in the room. Occasionally I will see a shadow pass over his face, and I know he’s thinking of my inevitable departure, the embraces last a little too long, the squeezes are a little too tight, and the sighs are more often and prominent. I’ve begun saying goodbye to the friends of his that know me from when I met them the last time I was out in California, that previous visit being about Jack introducing me to his people, and incorporating me into the life he has started without me here, and that will be his mainstay after I’m gone. I am feeling the concern his people have for him and his wellbeing, I can see the confusion in their eyes as they ask me the general barrage of questions about my journey, too polite without a few glasses of wine to straight out ask me the obvious “how can you leave him?,” or “what are you guys going to do?” The painful personal questions to which we ourselves don’t have any certain answers and the ones we come up with that seem promising, good or achievable somehow ring hallow or untrue, even though they are the only answers we’ve got. I am caught wanting to throw things and scream “Don’t you understand I love him too, more than you, in the very core of my being, and leaving him is like ripping an essential organ from my person asking me to breathe with one lung, it can be done, but it’s tiring and painful? Don’t you think that I, the one who loves him most, know very intimately how this is killing him, killing me? Can’t you understand that I’ve thought this through and time and time again the numbers always add up and the equation is always the same and at the end of the day this is the only choice I can make, for me, for him, for even the possibility of us?” At the same time I want to scream at and shake people I want to look down and to shirk out of the room, the state, the country quietly, with no production, and no fanfare, like the criminal I feel like I am for hurting a man so good so profoundly.

He is a truly good man, my Jack, who has whole heartedly supported me and this journey so totally and completely, putting his own feelings aside to comfort me in my confusion and uncertainty, his faith in me sometimes stronger than my own, carrying both of us through the most trying of times. I simply couldn’t have asked for more or for better and never really believed someone like him existed. He has shared with me in my joys and my sorrows through this whole long crazy trip, and whatever happens with me, with him, with us and the future, I know I have been lucky and extremely blessed to have had this time with him. As I write this on his laptop with a lump in my throat and tears welling up behind my sunglasses, he drives us along a gorgeous sunny California highway, as the snow flies in blizzard like conditions back in MN. He gently reaches over for my hand as we drive, and holds my wrist as I type, oblivious of the love that pours from my fingers onto the keys. This is the fairy tale I live, and the fairy tale I leave.