The In-Between of Now

It’s a curious space, this stage of life.

My current heart walks around outside my body in squidgy toddler form, giggling, inventing, demanding, dreaming. It lives within my marriage and extended family, intimacy and introspection, nature and music and food and skincare routines (which may or may not be BS).

My childhood heart continues to thump towards adventure: Elgar Concerto, hotter-than-hot dynamic yoga, skydiving again (one day…!).

My hidden heart is often afraid: of irrelevance, of disappearing, of undesirability, to say nothing of the many much, much larger tragedies and injustices in the world. It mourns what I no longer have time for or can keep alive, due simply to the passing of time; it worries about being enough, helping in the right ways, dreams becoming smaller without my even noticing.

Sometimes a woman pushing a stroller is but an outline: hardly noticed, barely seen, even by others doing the same. 

There’s often a certain confusion — discomfort, even — expressed when faced with many truths at once. “But what ARE you?” 

“I’m a violinist.”

“I’m Hispanic.”

“I’m a mom.”

There, is that better?

(Isn’t that so reductive? So boring!?)

Can I not be, simultaneously, the person I’ve always been alongside my evolving self? A solo adventurer and a career-woman and a partner and a carer? Someone who loves standing out in front; being nestled within a group; sitting curled up behind the curtain, masterminding plans? Can I not love music that has been justly celebrated for centuries and music that has yet to be celebrated properly?

Yes. 

I can love the wild adrenaline of being a soloist, the direct connection and democracy of chamber music, the powerful purpose of artistic directorship, the unique creativity and usefulness of navigating new artistic waters.

I can love my family and cherish my time alone.

I can wish for home and away, sometimes at the same time, sometimes when I’m already here or there.

I can yearn for my old self — body, spirit, abandon — while recognizing that that person, too, had big questions and crippling insecurities. I can celebrate my current self while noticing my tendencies towards the comparative. I can look forward to my future self with all the excitement and anxieties inherent in the unknown. 

I am no stranger to the in-between. I am, however, less familiar with an explicit acknowledgment of a space where so many things are true at once. So thank you, Franz Galo (www.franzgalo.com), for helping to capture a moment of many layers. This is not just a nod to the in-between; it’s a celebration of all the overlapping pieces of me.

What’s that rule in improv? Always “yes, and…”?