Celebration 1

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1

Today I celebrate the betweens, those fragments, those intangibles captured in the micro-instants between flicking the switch and the arrival of illumination, the thoughts wedged within action and its aftermath. Parentheses opened and closed. That moment directly preceding the first sip of coffee, right after you’ve smelled the dark roast’s fragrance, but before the liquid touches your tongue. Sunlight. Clouds. The anticipation of your loved one’s smile mingling with the male red-winged blackbird’s morning proclamation and the realization that more will follow. A chef’s knife callous and its long history. All that’s blossomed since that first kiss. And other conjunctions nested together. Laughter. Wind chimes. And more. Always, more.

Tell me, please. What are your favorite betweens? Where are they?

71 thoughts on “Celebration 1”

      • I am a cliche. Retired in Florida. But outside my window is a large lake with herons, snowy egrets, roseate spoonbills, terns, mallards, Muscovy ducks, cottonmouth moccasins, moor hens, huge snapping turtles, otters, bass and perch, gulls of various kinds, ring-necked snakes, opossums, raccoons, black racers, sandhill cranes, pileated woodpeckers, doves, bluejays, ravens, anole lizards, many more. I was remarking about this to a friend recently and saying that oddly, I had never seen a field mouse here. That afternoon I stepped outside, and there was a field mouse looking up at me as though to say, “You called?’

        And about those egrets. I have stories about them. And the herons. Stories that would chill your blood. But I don’t want to give you any egret regrets. I’ll say only this, quoting Annie Dillard: “Life in the grass is one great chomp.”

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  2. I would have to say that my favorite in-between time is the end of August/beginning of September, that time between the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. It’s such a poignant time for me, when I can reinhabit all the past days that meant so much to me.

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  3. Like Liz, I am thinking about the seasons. There is that place at the end of winter when it suddenly gets warm in the midwest U.S. and you almost believe spring is here, but you know it is only early March and there is still much snow and ice to come.

    Then that bit at the end of November and it suddenly snows and everyone has long faces, only you know, if you watch for it, there will be one more warm day to relish before winter really sinks in.

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  4. So, I play classical and jazz guitar. My son took up the instrument and was fronting a Heavy Metal band. My friend Kat, who is a singer songwriter of some note in that world, came to visit. She asked Kai, my son, what he was working on. He said, “Well, lately, I’ve been trying to pay a lot more attention to the spaces between the notes.”

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  6. Sometimes I realize that I don’t have to “do” anything at all. Absolutely nothing. And the space before me expands. And time becomes a landscape without beginning or end. The realization happens in the gap between doing and not doing and energizes whatever I happen to pick up next and has been known to influence my entire day. I would like you to imagine this as a moment in the unfolding life of an enlightened man… unfortunately, I must admit… generally I’ve just finished my morning coffee and am sitting on the toilet wondering what the hell I am going to do next. You can imagine my thrill when I realize I don’t “have” to do anything at all! What a day it’s going to be.

    Another moment. The one right after I discover a bird I have never seen before in the backyard and I am transported back to the pure and innocent joy of a child.

    And this moment experienced in Newfoundland and written into a poem years ago…

    All trace of self erased
    as the landscape leaves you

    standing on the face of the earth.

    Loneliness; the last thought
    before the impossibility
    of loneliness.

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  7. Leibnitz coined the term and wrote the book on the topic: theodicy.

    But what he had to say in that book makes zero sense to me. Same for his Monads.

    However, on this problem of evil, I think he missed something that he, being one of the discoverers of the calculus, should not have missed:

    Given, that we are infinite beings, any finite amount of suffering, divided by infinity, is zero.

    I shouldn’t have to explain this to his spirit, hovering around my desk right now.

    Jesus and I (for James Tate) | Bob Shepherd

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    • I don’t know about that infinite beings stuff. Truth be told–and why not?–I don’t know Jack, and neither does anyone else, far as I can tell. But one thing is for sure: Laplacian materialism is not only theology; it’s piss-poor amateur theology at that. That we have thoughts and toes are different things, and nothing that anyone has ever said about this fact is the truth about it. Daniel Dennett has a nasty name for people like me who obsess about the former not being derivable from the latter because it is a different kind of thing entirely: mysterians.

      Well, that’s the proper response to a mystery, isn’t it? To say, “Well, this is mysterious.”

      Speaking of contraries, see how the brook
      In that white wave runs counter to itself.
      It is from that in water we were from
      Long, long before we were from any creature.
      Here we, in our impatience of the steps,
      Get back to the beginning of beginnings

      –“West-Running Brook.”

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  9. My favourite between would be the holy gap between two bodies that love each other – it is a space that holds everything, where we can be read and known, page by living page, it is the secret gathering place of our souls – an immersion in the original river, unburdened by our histories – it’s communion. It’s the subject of a poem I wrote long ago.

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  12. The time between a book’s acceptance and its publication. So much promise of what it can still become, as it continues to evolve. The anticipation is exquisite.

    And the time between when my son was born, and when I first heard his speaking voice, I wanted to know what it would sound like, how it would imprint itself on my heart. I wanted to know how it would make its own timbre. The child who had been so much a part of me was now separate.

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  13. Betweens…

    the lightning leaving ghosts behind your eyelids
    the thunder humming in the small bones of your ear
    the first drop of summer rain
    the petrichor rising up to fill your nose
    one side of the doorway where you know what you want
    the other side where you have forgotten
    the glimpse of the sea
    the salt smell
    the sound of the raven’s wings
    the dwindling incarnate shadow

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  14. For me it is the usual things, the human things. But there is one particular moment, one relevant moment for this occasion… waking up in an apartment in Osaka and watching the sunlight slowly illuminate the naked back of my girlfriend, surrounded by silence, with the distant hills around Kobe glowing like some kind of green gold. In that moment I had a realisation…

    …that I had finally “witnessed” a Robert Okaji poem, all that makes his poems his. An infinitely hot star (vital consciousness), made perfect by atmosphere (the scene), and the perfect nudity of innocence (a sleeping lover, without malice or intent, aesthetics without prejudice). Strip away the bullshit and we are all sleepers acting out our best and worst dreams. We are asleep, but dappled by sunlight. Robert helps us see… and in that moment I saw him.

    He is so beautiful…

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  16. My daughter and are careful every year to be ready for the pink cherry blossom in our local park. There is a cherry blossom “avenue” and other cherry blossom trees too. It doesn’t last very long at all. They are Japanese cherry blossom trees I think. I noticed little rainbows hanging from them during the pandemic. I know we are not the only ones to see the blossom as a priceless event.

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  18. My daughter and I are always careful to not miss the cherry blossom in the local park as it doesn’t last long. There is an avenue of cherry blossom trees and other cherry blossom trees too – so it does have a brief and spectacular pink season. Many others must find this priceless too.

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  20. Hmm, let’s see – turning on the radio, hearing a favorite song and the joy and bounce in my step it brings; my husband telling me about a surprise visit from one or both of our sons, and then their arrival brings me wonderful hugs; making an intentional effort to surprise a friend, then seeing their joy. These are probably my top ones, but I know there are so many more! Loved to see your betweens too, Robert!

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