The Space In Between

Hello everyone....it's the start of Memorial Day weekend here in the U.S.....any special plans you are excited about? I'm having a quiet time, as my husband is at a family reunion which I couldn't attend since I'm now a working gal with a new job! But, I'm going to enjoy the time in the studio, reading and musing about any number of things....in fact, I've already begun. When I was last here earlier in the week, I mentioned my revisitation with the humble dot as a repetitive mark. I will say that sitting quietly at the studio table, making unlimited points of ink on a page allows me to muse endlessly....about the dots as moments in time, individuals in a sea of humanity, grains of sand that was ashore with each new wave. And the proximity of those tiny marks....well, that's another whole catalog of thoughts. The pattern that emerges on the page relates to the proximity of the dots. As I played with varying their distance from one another I thought about the space between things and how one can always find an empty field between two "somethings" to insert something else....and isn't that a way to think about infinity? There is always space between, even when it doesn't seem so at all. When two things appear to have no space between them, it's really just an illusion, isn't it....a function of our limited perception? There are always moments between moments....when time opens up and out. There is always a space between.

And all that reminded me of my astonishment some time ago when I relearned a little something about the basics of the universe in the wonderful and quite aptly named book by Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything. I've just gotten my worn copy off the shelf. Not that I have any real understanding of quantum physics or physics of any kind....yet, these notions on page 141 give me pause....

"....if an atom were expanded to the size of a cathedral, the nucleus would be only about the size of a fly--but a fly many thousands of times heavier than the cathedral....." and a sentence or two later "It is still a fairly astounding notion to consider that atoms are mostly empty space, and that the solidity we experience all around us is an illusion. When two objects come together in the real world--billiard balls are most often used for illustration--they don't actually strike each other. 'Rather', as Timothy Ferris explains, 'the negatively charged fields of the two balls repel each other...were it not for their electrical charges they could, like galaxies, pass right through each other unscathed.' When you sit in a chair, you are not actually sitting there, but levitating above it at a height of one angstrom (a hundred millionth of a centimeter), your electrons and its electrons implacably opposed to any closer intimacy."


Many more dots to go, but I have to say that I really enjoy making these tiny marks....watching the spaces in between open up like a floating whisper. A small but infinite joy.

There are some fresh dailies for the week posted over at MissouriBendMusings if you'd like to check them out. Now, it's time to wind down the day and get some shut eye. I'm working tomorrow, but then Sunday and Monday are mine for the musing!  Hope you have a fine weekend....see you in a few days.