I have been thinking a lot lately what it means to live in-between. Today I have only a short time to write about it. I am hovering inbetween the needs of my garden and my wanting to write. I am hovering inbetween in many other ways as well.
In eastern thought, there is the theme of bardos, the time-space that we enter when our bodies cease to function and we transition into another kind of existence. I think that same kind of existing inbetween is a dimension of my whole existence. It manifests in so many ways, even before I die.
Between desire and the object of my desire, there is a space that is neither a longing or a possession of what I long for. Actually, it is a combination of both, but not either. It is a coming together but not actually touching, it means living in the gap and absorbing, feeling the strong gravitational pull of each.
For me, it is a realm of emptiness, of free-fall, of totally letting go but containing all things. It is a place to be in-between, a place to live unhinged and unattached. It is a place of entering into the whole messy affair, all at once.
Language encourages me to take sides, to be this or that. There is no inbetween language, even while poetry attempts to create that space. Language encourages binary thinking and relationship. Black is not white, this is not that, here is not there.
Gender distinctions pull me into a binary world that doesn’t actually exist. It pulls me into an illusion that is not based on reality. Gender does not allow for inbetween living. Trans young people are helping me to see that reality is not binary but it is inbetween. I can no longer see myself as one or the other, and I am attempting to live in the inbetween reality.
Living inbetween means letting go of most of my concepts and paradigms. It means entering a space that floats outside of time. It rides on a deep sea of non-binary reality and invites me into a deep connection with all things. But it means surrendering to free-fall, no longer relying on a world defined in a binary manner. It encourages me to see black as being white, this as being that, here as being there. It invites me to live a paradox.
Perhaps it simply means becoming unhinged. I find that becoming unhinged is strongly attractive. Living in-between is the closest I have ever felt to being in touch with reality.