I was out for a walk. Spring finally tempting us with her promise. She is not here yet, and they are forecasting a few more weeks of cold winds, but if I tilt my head to the sun I can feel the warmth in the rays. There is a faint bird song in the trees. Caught in the transition between two seasons, these days are rarely remarked on. We are no longer in the grips of winter, not yet released by the embrace of spring.

We don’t often celebrate the in-between. The intercostal. The moment of transition between exhaling and inhaling. The drunkenness of not still asleep but not yet awake, the release of having finished the exam and not having a grade yet, the space between the start of a drug trial and the words “remission”.  We are grateful for the leap, but rarely consider the first action of bending our knees.

There are such vulnerability and vibrancy in the little moments in between. I find them so poignant. So fixed on the end state, the definitive, the thing that we are striving for, we forget that the transition is a unique space of its own. I’ve started to wonder, what is in the space between?

So I’ve started a new gratitude practice, to find the magic of in-between. Not just the great shared meal, but the comfort of grocery shopping with Gerry before. Not just the school bell but the anticipation as I arrive to pick up my 4-year-old best friend. The first spring flowers in a still frozen ground. The walk between the airport lounge and the gate.

And I find there is a lot of space in between.

I called my Croatian Baka today to let her know that I was flying in; a 12-hour stopover mid-way on my journey to visit my brother who is working in the United Arab Emirates. My grandmother lives in a seniors care facility now. Some days are better than others. Her memory fades in and out. She knows it; she often lives in this space in between.  “I may not be able to remember when you are coming,” she says to me, “but I know that I am happy to see you.”

There is love in between.

There is a silence that I can sit in.

There are little promises of what is to come.

There are the ease and flow of it not being there yet.

What do you find in your in-between moments?

In Celebration, Tania