What is The Deep Space Between?

It is so much more than a description or a definition.

Photo by Rostyslav Savchyn on Unsplash

It is the title to my debut novel. The rift between my protagonist’s wants, needs, dreams, and nightmares. The space between herself and the voice in her head, between books and knowledge, happiness and sadness.

But it is more than that. More than the book that bears its name. More than the words to describe it.

It is the space between our thoughts. The breaks in our never-ending narrative; the moments when we aren’t spinning ideas, worries, concerns. Those moments some call meditation, others prayer, and still others exercise, dance, creativity or art. And yet they are all the same.

It is the seeming unending space between our realities and our dreams. The gap, the canyon, the hyperspace distance before our dream becomes our reality. You can cross that space with the smallest of steps, one after the other, or leaps and bounds, like astronauts bouncing on the moon. And yet we rarely do.

It is who we think we are and who we actually are — our identity, internally and externally. It is the gap between what we show the world and who we feel inside. It is the darkness we think we are and the lightness we beam to others. And yet we can’t define ourselves.

It is the silence between words, a lull in a song, a beat in a poem. It is the beauty of art in all its forms and facets. A pause to breathe, a pause to feel, a pause to read. And yet we fail to pause at all.

It is the moment before your world is changed forever, that slip in time, the calm before the storm. If we were to know what we know now about our time then, would we attempt to milk that moment, that space between moments, to drain it of all potential joy and love before that joy is tainted from what comes after the space between?

But most of all, it is the chasms that erupt between families, friends, and those we love. It is the void where pain, hurts, and resentments reside and fester. It is the darkness that divides, that silences, that breaks love. It is the space between a loving connection, a deep friendship, the love of a mother and a child that has been irrevocably broken.

It was my playground, my solace, my tormentor. I reveled in its darkness, consumed…