The Space Between Us
The days of COVID. There will be many adjectives we might use to describe this time, all of which will be deeply personal to our own experience of it; we most certainly all have our unique perspectives.
I have taken great notice of what has been coming up for me in the idea of social distancing. Tape on the ground marking space, shimmying around the imaginary 6 foot (or is it 2m?) invisible boundaries we keep, crossing the road to avoid a pavement encounter with an approaching Mum and her child.
The space between us has come into true focus.
I have also been reflecting on the importance of that space. For the period of lockdown I have been alone in my mother’s house where I remained after her death in January. My partner and my children are in Canada. There is much to say as to whether this is an idillic situation or a horribly lonely one. The answer might lie somewhere in the middle.
Being alone, one thinks about relationships. What is it that brings people together; what instills the trust of a lifelong friendship, why is it possible to feel loneliness in a crowd of people at a party?
I have come to a.conclusion I’d like to share: relationships are less about the people and more about the space between the people. I’m not just talking about romantic relationships, or even friendships. It is the same for the relationship you have with your butcher or your neighbour down the road.
Between two people there are three entities: the two people and the relationship they are caring for. To build relationship we are taking care of the space between us.
When we expand this concept to community, it is obvious that relationship is important, but what does this mean? Is it enough to engage in small talk at the counter, or is there something deeper at play? I would suggest that developing relationship is about working to understand what the world looks like from someone else’s perspective. So often we reflect someone else’s experience with our own. By seeing the world through someone else’s eyes we learn much more about the community we all live within. By taking the time to develop relationship in this way we validate the experience of the other.
By honouring the space between us not because it separates us but because it joins us together, we shift our perspective of our place amongst the people we live with.
