In Between
On living in the moment of hope
An elevator, a parking lot, an empty hotel hallway, the long drive in my rather banged-up Outback as I take my daughter to and from her school on my way to and from the university where I teach downtown; these are, oddly or perhaps not so oddly, the places I feel I most belong. I’ve been leaving, joining, leaving, starting again, trying again, for at least thirty-three years. I turned fifty about a month ago.
I move from one place to another.
I tell my students when we begin to discuss short stories that in a story you don’t have to tie everything together neatly. Sometimes, you end a beat before a moment imagined outside the confines of the pages. A word, a sound, a sentence might punch you in the gut, or a gauzy image might leave you wistful and yearning for what came before. The end of the story isn’t necessarily THE END.
I don’t tell my students that I that I still occupy the space they are in, one that is a state of becoming. “Does that mean everything is in a state of development for you?” One of them asked. It became a way to make us all laugh at times; where are you in the piece? Oh, a state of development. Another student brought up the idea of liminality. What is that? She wanted me to answer.
