The pause-between-worlds, the space-between-stories
Photo by Alexis Antoine on Unsplash
I’ve always experienced stories as lodestones that pull me towards a specific place or a feeling. They have always felt, somehow, solid and concrete.
A story that particularly resonates for me is E M Forster’s novel Howards End, which has at its heart an exploration of the relationship between the material and the spiritual. This exploration is played out at the level of character in the contrast between the Schlegels (three culture-loving, intellectually bohemian siblings) and the Wilcoxes (the family they befriend). Symbolic of commerce, business and ‘new money’, the Wilcoxes exist—as Forster writes—in ‘the world of telegrams and anger.’
Forster published his novel long before the invention of the internet, of course—in a time in which telegrams were actual things. But, for the contemporary reader who might experience daily the shout-y energy of emails and insistent pull of social media, the telegram retains a metaphorical significance.
While most of us need such communication for our day-to-day existence, it can wear us down and take us over. We become so subsumed by the power of the vehicle (the mechanisms of email or Instagram or Twitter—the ‘telegrams’) that we lose sight of the message itself. The anger, in other words, overpowers the telegram’s usefulness as a means of connection.
When this begins to happen for me—as it does regularly—I search for a pause between worlds.
I slip into the space between stories, dwelling in the interstices.
I exist between the solidity of the material and the everyday and the more mysterious (you might even say spiritual) sense of not-being-in-the-world— or, more accurately, I am in the world in a different way: a purer way, perhaps, where the emphasis is on being, rather than doing.
Writer and podcast producer Madeleine Dore reflects on the sustaining power of what she calls ‘the beauty in the break.’ For me, these times are interludes, spaces in-between. In this pause, I block out time in my calendar and switch off my alarm, waking as naturally as my body allows. Whether it’s for a single day or a longer period, I limit my input (sometimes turning off the wifi altogether) and revel in the silence away from my desk and the screen.
I listen, as intently as possible, to my needs; I follow what feels good. That might mean taking a longer than usual walk, or having a luxurious bath in the middle of the afternoon. It might involve periods just staring into space.
I’m acutely aware of my good fortune to have the capacity to build into my calendar this time for reflection and self-nurture. To be able to do this on a seasonal basis is a gift.
In this space between stories—with telegrams and anger both at bay—I recuperate, and restore myself to my Self.
Immersed recently in one of these self-directed retreats, I felt compelled in the middle of meditating to stop, lie down and take a nap in the glorious spring sunshine streaming through my window.
Years ago (even months ago perhaps) I’d have felt too guilty to be able to do this.
Now, I realise that without these phases of deep rest, it’s impossible for me to do the deep work I’m here to do.
Photo by Rachel Connor
It’s a practice to welcome stillness and solitude like this, to embrace the power of the in-between: this fluid and shifting space between stories.
Yet, there are times for all of us—whether through illness or bereavement, or in the aftermath of any catalytic event that blindsides us—when this pause, this slipping between worlds, is enforced rather than coming from choice. When it might literally seem like the world has stopped. When our hearts and souls have shattered into pieces. When we need to withdraw from the telegrams and anger to heal and rebuild.
As Lissa Rankin (borrowing from Charles Eisenstein) writes:
When you’re in [the] space between stories, the only thing to do is rest. Allow yourself to be comforted. Sleep a lot. Be in nature. Meditate. Bathe yourself in beauty. Create stuff for no reason. Do what you can to relax the monkey mind that is grasping for the next story. Surround yourself with the trusted beloveds who cultivate the stillness in you. Be exquisitely kind to yourself.
So, here’s another reason to explore the space between stories; to withdraw—even when we’re in a healthy place—from the world of telegrams and anger. The pauses are an honouring of the in-between, those places that are fluid rather than concrete. We’re honouring ourselves, too, in this way: permitting space for the invisible, the mysterious and the not-so-comprehensible.
When we make a deliberate practice of the pause, we embrace complexity. We refuse the binary of either/or (the material versus the spiritual; telegrams versus silence), knowing that the stillness and silence of the in-between can prepare us for the roar and clamour of the everyday. Rest, reflection, solitude, quiet: all these things are emergency interventions for the soul.
More importantly, occupying these spaces—claiming the power of the pause—can be a way for us to reframe, in a fundamental way, the stories that define us.
