There's a place called nowhere that's hidden in plain sight.
It's a holding ground of sorts, a no man's land, an in between.
For the doers, movers and shakers, there's an uneasy steadiness in knowing that when you're moving forward and going nowhere, you're still going somewhere.
It sounds like bullshit to me most of the time and when someone says to "trust the process" I have an itching sense to explain what happens when you shoot a flaming arrow but don't take proper aim and trust that it'll fly forward and hit the intended object. There's nothing trustworthy about an affair with fire.
I suppose it's contradictory because I find that I only trust a process that I'm familiar with or have developed a proven relationship that hinges on the contingencies of knowing exactly what my outcomes will be and what I need to do to get there; to get somewhere, not nowhere.
I look at it as beating the system. I look at it as outsmarting myself at my own game, as forgetting that I had an additional $500 saved during Monopoly that I forgot about until the end.
Sometimes nowhere is a place we slouch towards; dragging our ten pound-feet after we have reluctantly crammed our baggage into a few pieces of actual baggage and we now stand in a sea of strangers, waiting to claim what we would rather someone else accidentally take.
Other times, nowhere is a place you stumble upon as you veer off the highway coming to an abrupt stop after going 100mph. A place that is unexpected.
For me, nowhere is a place of discontent. I always know I've arrived when I feel as if I'm experiencing what most other people call "rest" or "relaxation."
My preferred sense of peacefulness and rest finds me in the pockets of life when I'm driving in the car with my brother, fully immersed at the moment.
When we're singing at the top of our lungs to some bluegrass and Americana tunes, listening to the hollow resonation of a banjo being strummed and the suspenseful yet fulfilling breath-like rhythm of a harmonica. As I sing the lines "everyone knows you can't go to hell without passing through Atlanta first" I revel in the rows of Spanish moss that hang above our heads.
I think back to hearing my third-grade science teacher telling me that Spanish moss is an epiphyte, so it absorbs its nutrients from the air and water.
I think about the times when I wish I could live as an epiphyte; trusting the process of merely existing, going nowhere, and still receiving the sustainable life source needed to ensure my existence.
There are times when sustaining yourself feels fruitless and laborious. It feels like invested energy that won't see a return for many years to come, if at all. There's nothing about that process that I feel inclined to trust.
In those moments under the moss, I think about what matters and wonder if the very thing we seek for fulfillment is the thing that won't fulfill us.
If going somewhere will fulfill a desire that requires we go nowhere.
I find that what matters is peaceful moments when the warm, Indian Summer sun is beating through the sunroof, and you experience the enveloping hug of the most welcoming weather and fresh breeze you've ever felt on an October afternoon in the Carolinas.
What matters is when that perfect song plays in that precise moment, and you know that there's nowhere else you need to be except here. Nowhere else.
That is the kind of nowhere that I want to be. A place called nowhere, where moments seem to matter.
That's what matters. That is quality of life measured to the point of "cup runneth over" or more simply, not half empty or half full, but full because haven't you ever realized that air fills all things?
It fills our lungs, it feeds and fills the Spanish moss, and I'm sure it fills a place called nowhere, too.
