What is the space called that falls between spaces? There is a space between our eyelids that is closed when we blink, it is as if it momentarily disappears then reappears to become a space through which we regard and gaze and stare at the world. Where does that space go when we blink, when we sleep? Is it pushed aside? Is it consumed, filled, distorted or destroyed? When we wake it is there again. Between blinks it is present. What removes what – the blink removing the space or the space removing the blink? When we wake it is the same. Eyelids fight space as function. What is the function of space?
Space is a vital non-existence that is crucial to our existence. If we couldn’t make space between our lips our hearts would starve unable to whisper love. When not in heads or in books or on signs, words use space to move about and to be heard (and even then we need spaces to form ‘a’s’ and ‘o’s’ and ‘q’s’ and so on). Rooftops are spaces upon which we should shout into other spaces our undying love. Space can be loud as well as quiet.
Space is sometimes a genius. It lurks, taken for granted yet unresentful, in perfect ways. If there were no spaces set in closely stabbed rows our toilet paper would remain a singular lolling sheet. Spaces are convenient. Cups insist on a space in their middles. They embrace space in order to hold something to drink. Space is something that can be used, even when left alone.
Space is not always mute nor is it necessarily blank. Sometimes space is given over to certain human endeavours like towns and farms and art and motorways. Space is not always roaming free, sometimes space is designated.
Space it seems is a paradox of sorts: it is a void, it is absence, yet it is full and present. Space is like, in a roundabout way, candle wax: transforming and mutating, seeming to disappear; but when the flame is cooled and we return a little while later, it has reformed, re-emerged. It is like the weed that isn’t pulled out by the roots, it makes a comeback. Space like well thrown boomerangs, departs and returns.
Space is integral to the ebb and flow of life. There is a species of space between heartbeats, indeed it is this space that lets us know there is a heartbeat, a blip or a ping and not that mortal concluding monotone of the oscilloscope droning. Bye mum. There is a space in my life where my mother used to be. Space can be painful.
Space between me and a bear is very good space, it can never be enough. But a hairs breadth of space between me and you is too much. I don’t want to see the end of me and the beginning of you, it is intolerable space, it is space that denies our love. Space can be good, can be bad, can be conquered, though only for a little while. Between birth and dying there is the space we call life.
