That’s how long I was in Taiwan.
Two years.
That’s how long I will be in Tucson.
While laying on my parents’ futon trying to read Obama’s, ‘Dreams from My Father,’ I got to a section where he started a paragraph with ‘A month.” What followed that short and simple statement spanned a 7-lined sentence that has 4 commas, two semi-colons and one colon. A month was the length of time his father came to visit in Hawaii. Everything that happened before and after that month spans the length of the book, of course.
I stopped reading and placed the book on my chest and started to cry.
It’s so easy to spout a length of time and either gasp, weep or sigh and then go on a 7 line rant on why that length of time was worth a gasp, weep or sigh.
Two years in South Africa. Gasp. Weep. Sigh.
Two years there.
Two months over there.
Two weeks there.
Now I am here.
Beyond the space that is framed by time, we tend to forget that everything before and everything that follows is nowhere near simple, sometimes more intense and convoluted then the time-framed-space itself. What happens between those blocks of times? Between my two years in SF and my two months in Taiwan? Between my two weeks in the Valley and moving for two years of school? What happens in between all the twos’?
Lots and lots of waiting.
I am waiting between huge blocks of experiences and times, chunks of my life that seem to define my existence and pursuits. Thus to make this waiting easier, I tell myself, nothing in between matters. I’ll travel around a bit, make some stuff, catch up with old friends. Hang Out. Fight loneliness. Fight off feeling like I have nothing. Fight off the fact that I have no bed.
But still, what happens to all the stuff that happens in the in between? The people I meet, the conversations exchanged, the moments shared with old friends and new and the efforts and regrets conducted within the space of waiting? Nothing matters, I tell myself. I’m in between. But somehow I know it matters, all of it. Neglected friendships, missed opportunities, zero expectations, careless pursuits, all the time of waiting. So I continue to wait.
