Between America and Germany, between here and then, between culture and death. We have choices of where we want to be, what we want to eat, and how we want to feel. Sure, it takes a lot of love, friendship, and trust to succeed in finding our way into and between these joys, but there are options for those who are uncompromising in their ability to compromise.
Today is my day in between as tomorrow I go while today I stay. Between things are preparation and then a train ride that will cover 640 kilometers (400 miles) from Frankfurt to Husum in the north. It would be faster to drive, but taking photos from the windows of a car is not as safe as doing the same from the train. My mind is already halfway to the next place and three-quarters of the way home. I’m in between.
I’m in between others’ lives too. How does one care about what passes among family members when certain obvious conditions are at play? Do we ignore tensions for the sake of neutrality while that train approaches possible wreckage? Or do we engage ourselves, risking our own place in a crumbling cohesiveness that is at the precipice? I know the answer and throw myself into the volcano.
What if I’m wrong? Then, the ensuing wreckage threatens to ensnare others into the mess I might be creating from misplaced perceptions that were only obvious to me. What if I’m right? I can’t really ever know, as the forces that move people ultimately have to come from the truth that resonates within them.
So, I walk and walk and walk. My sense of time is out of sync with my significant other, who is 10,000 kilometers away from me, on the opposite side of the earth. Our love is never more than milliseconds apart; even when asleep, I feel that our heads lay right next to one another with nary a millimeter between them. To fill that minuscule gap, I walk, and I walk some more. In every step, those places between my thoughts are traveled, and the distance is shortened as I grow ever more familiar with where I’ve been and where I might be going.
Still, there are pathways I hadn’t seen that require a sharp right or left turn, and yet others I never saw coming that present opportunities to peek into the dark alleys where danger might exist. If I attempt my best to remain aware, maybe I’ll find just enough light to illuminate my own ignorance.
Between the darkness and light, our youth guides us unless we murder that naivete to enable the future dead self to operate in the here and now. How does one reconcile living with one’s own corpse? We close the gap between spontaneity, positivity, and hope so we can clasp that hand of despair. Do not walk with the dead, as you, too, will soon be rotting.
Do you know those places right in front of you when you are wandering around that stand between moments in time? They’re among the trees, in architecture, and the faces you might encounter. All things are in between their own history while simultaneously existing between everything else’s history. If you cannot perceive that the person across from you is not your age, nor are they remotely aware of where you are in your own life’s process, it’s likely because you’ve turned off your awareness and ceased wandering. The dead coyote or sleeping woodpecker were expert wanderers living in moments of freedom until consciousness fully stopped or was just taking a pause; it seems that only humans can be considered as the living dead.
If you are foolish enough to remain at home witnessing the past without any possibility of peering into a spontaneous moment. Your routines are blocking you from refocusing the telescope and the microscope that is your perception. Your thoughts, like the notes on a piano, drift out of tune, and befuddlement befalls you like a discordant song played at the wrong speed.
Now I must go walk as I run out of what I filled up on during my previous walk. I’m inching closer to being in between the words that will run out before being replenished. Walking is the food for my mind, as is what I press into my mouth is nourishment for my body. The symbiosis should have always been known, but when a society places a premium on cultural suicide, how do we survive that strangulation of our imaginations when the voices that would inform us of our ignorance are lost in the noise between entertainment and consumption?
Do I lament this place time has brought me between young and old man where idealism and hope might be blinding me to a reality where the masses no longer care about survival? I do not mean physical survival but the independence of our ability to create and explore the complexity our ancestors discovered and gifted us. No, I cannot lament this great fortune of being present as the future may deal me a blow and take away this insight I believe I’m within. I’m not between here and there; I’m in the now and ecstatic for this awareness. And so, I go walk more.
What if tomorrow I have nothing to say? I may have walked a thousand miles by then, yet my fingers could obscure the letter sequence lost behind a gate of frustration. It happens that our emotional state tells the brain’s creative outlet that it is not allowed to deliver anything that might be meaningful to others due to internal turmoil when ego cascades in a destructive crush, trying to obscure the truth. Maybe the truth is I’m not being honest with others, or maybe not with myself. Can I hear those around me and the me that is within demanding I listen to things I must learn because I lost my ability to celebrate raw exploration?
Mental illness springs forward in the void of neglect and self-abuse that arrives with turning in without the balancing counter-action of turning out. What exactly transpires or went wrong as we go rogue, turning into a hermit? The mythology of the troll comes to mind where this angry creature must suffer for taking refuge under the bridge and forever being afraid to go beyond its domain. How tragic the idea that as a shut-in, our inner troll emerges, pushing away all those who care and come near, costing this victim a hefty price of total alienation.
Some are alone and lost, while others carry the voices of unwanted visitors within. Learning how to choose a path and what to filter out isn’t always as simple as an A/B choice. We must look to others for help to escape when our existence becomes a blur, or we are a reflection in the shadows between clarity and light. Take the hand of the one who is trying to rescue you; being alone is not the same as being human.