Thin Places

The backstory:

Thin Places is a book by Jordan Kisner. The title comes from a notion in Celtic mythology that the distance between our world and the next is never more than three feet (i.e. just a little more than an arm's reach away). There are "thin places" where that distance shrinks and then vanishes, where you can glimpse some other world or way of being for a brief moment. Often, "thin places" are literal places, geographical locations that feel holy or otherworldly, but you could also imagine these kinds of thresholds popping up anywhere: in a hospital room, in a bar, in your apartment, in your relationship, in you. A thin place may also be a moment, a time when you were briefly suspended between a world/life that you knew and something totally new, different, awesome, frightening.

The prompt:

Describe a “thin place” or threshold you’ve encountered. It could be a location, an experience, a relationship, a period of time.

 My response, in 11's:

1. I was FaceTiming with my girl this morning and suddenly I saw her as a grown-up, albeit she’s not quite 20 but I saw her right there on my screen as a woman, an adult crawling towards her future. She’s doing some hard work, facing challenges, uncertainties, fears and here I was in my office just watching, letting her be, letting her talk and sitting on my hands, grinding my teeth to not pop in with advice or platitudes. In the end I settled with, “You are doing some hard work. I am proud of you.”  

2. No one warns you how hard it is to just let them be. I am a meddler, a fixer, a paver, an advice giver, you know, a mother. But. But. But. Mothering is shifting for me now. It’s not that anyone is demanding I let go, but it’s that I must. That is my job now. I see a thin space between where I was, where I am, and where I am heading. All of it came in a rush like some time lapse triptych that I took in with one fell swoop. 

3. Stay centered is what I kept thinking. Stay focused on now and don’t rush ahead. Practice. Practice letting go. Keep practicing being right where I am. Stay. Practice.

4. Another thin space: the moment before I knew another black man was killed. Life was fine. But it wasn’t. It was still the world where Breonna Taylor died and George Floyed Died and Philando Castille died. It was still that world but it wasn’t a world where Daunte Wright was dead.

5. And now Daunte is dead and Ma’Khia Bryant is dead and it is a new world yet again. Two lights are gone, shifting our space, a space I can’t figure out except that I can. Black lives are expendable. Black lives do not matter. That is our world. 

6. I was a bit worried for my sister. She lives alone in St. Paul, not far from all the protest action that happened after George Floyd was killed. She got her dog out before the curfew set in. She lays low because she can. I know she gets that, but there are those who don’t, and that is another thin space, an opening I am not sure how to walk through because I don’t want to fight, especially with people I love. But this is my job, right? My call to action as a white person, to illuminate the thin space of privilege, to reveal what it is for those on the other side of it. 

7. And still, I am learning to be quiet. I am listening and I am doubling down on my efforts to donate more money, seek out more protests, write letters and send emails to senators and public officials. That is what I can do. I am speaking up where it matters:  in my home, to my students, with people who are feeling threatened, to my friend whose children are black and she is fearful. I am with her and there for her and will show up knowing it’s not about me. Be quiet when it’s appropriate, be loud and advocate too. Both. And. Listen. Shout. Again, another thin space between.

8. I read yesterday that if we stay open we are not shocked. If we stay awake to the present moment, we navigate with more ease between one moment to the next no matter how mundane or profound. And that space between mundane and profound is quite thin.  

9. So if this tracks, aren’t we always navigating these tiny portals between one life and another? Between the past and the future? Between a person you thought you knew and now don’t really recognize? The space between a moment of forgetting and remembering? Of retracing in order to step forward into the unknown? 

10. I often think of my husband, in the moment before he must deliver life-altering news. How does he hold that space? Does his heart race? Does his stomach churn? Does he focus on the science, the words? How can he convey empathy through a mask?

11.  I am familiar with the wild shift. I am familiar, not with being the one giving the news, but getting it, either through the obvious state of my body or a monotone comment, “There is no heartbeat.” I want to say I have done it countless times, but I can count and the number is 7. Each baby I lost was a thin space, one filled with life and hope against hope and possibility and then crushing, bruising, inescapable loss, death, hopelessness.  The ride up the hill of joy to plummet down to pain and loss. The space between was razor thin. I felt each moment for what it was and I see now, that always, that is all I can ever do. Those tiny moments before and during and after, training me for life.