The way we occupy spaces is not an occupation. We are there yet we aren't. I was at my old alma matter when a friend was too, but I didn't meet her then. We were occupying the same place, yet we weren't. I crossed a hemisphere, she switched time zones. And on stage we finally met. I grew up going to the same places as my first true, healthy love. Yet we only met online. I walked the same street and took the same subway station as my lover for months. Yet we only occupied the same space when looking deeply at each other uptown.
Even when we are at the exact same place, looking at one another, we often aren't really there either. Most often for me it's an in-between. How rare it is to have two people at once really there, together in a moment. I experienced that a couple of times, but much less than the amount of times I think a human being needs. Especially a being like me, so deeply engulfed in questions of time and space. What is most unfair is that often the person who is fully there has no clue that the other isn't. Again, so rare to have those moments where both are there, heart, mind, body, soul, all. And when such moments do appear, you can barely breath. It's like no air exists between you two. Even though you are two separate bodies and you might not even be touching, it's like you are one. Physicists say two bodies can't occupy the same space at the same time. I guess that's what this rule really means, that if both people are there, they actually become one. I learned that recently.
I have been learning about the spaces I occupy. Learning that the in-betweeness is no sweet deal. Learning that you can only be in-between without suffering if you are unpreoccupied and full of insider people pretending you are there too. So you feel safe occasionally, even though you're on the line. I'm learning that being both inside and outside is in fact just a lack of courage and/or knowledge and/or power to enter, or exit. It is uncomfortably comfortable. Numbing. Painless because feeling-less.
The rigidity I live by leads to fragmentation. And our shared communities aren't ready to heal fragmented people. Still, we are learning. Fragmented people cry alone because they are not inside someone else's life, not inside a home, not inside a community or a structure that sustains them. They are also not completely outside of needing said someone, said home, said structure, said community. Yet, fragmentation is the only path to being fully outside. Or, if you are lucky, to being fully inside. Afterall being fully outside means negating community, and hence, humanity. Let me be clear, everyone that is willing to do the work should be in an inside.
When you decide to move not on top of the Moebius, but through it, you get pixelated. Your body mind soul all break into small pieces to be reunited on the other side. I remain on the Moebius trying to cross. Dazed, confused, lost. Yet, certain that staying here has been a coping mechanism. Nothing more than a source of strength to be able to live through all the good-byes. To live through all the what-ifs. To live through all the chaos and fear. Enough. I need to jump and fully be inside. But before I can jump in, I need to jump out. Jump out and see from the outside. I need to meet myself, animal, solo, alone. Then I'll choose doors. Proper doors. Doors that match my keys. Doors that once pixelation happens, it leads to high definition. Doors where, after crossing, I can occupy the same space as another body and be one. Yet not rigid, and still multiple and diverse as one. No longer will I be a ghost flying through people's doors, floating on top of the Moebius, pretending to not be affected.
I need affect. Not afeto. I promised a starfish I'd never go back to not being affected. So let me cross the Moebius. Let me swim my way through. I just need to practice. I need to endure. To act. To inaugurate the next act of my play. I hope it's entertaining. I hope it's not hurtful. I hope it brings me to being fully inside someday. High definition and not pixelated. In community. At home. Navigating multiplicity without fragmentation. No more in-betweens. No more living on a border. No more Moebius ribbons.
