White Space.

It’s a phrase I heard from a friend who spent this past fall chasing after it. Or maybe chasing is the wrong word, because it flies right in the face of the “white space” concept. Because what white space speaks into our lives is a place to just rest in the in between. I suppose it would be more accurate to say she was choosing to cherish the white space.

It isn’t a concept unique to her and I’m positive I’m late to the party (as always), but this is the post I found on her social media page that made me just stop and breathe, “yes, that’s what I need.”

“I have struggled, lately in particular, with feelings of overwhelm, sensory overload, anxiety. Unable to think clearly or plan efficiently. Like there just wasn’t enough time and energy in the day. I have intentionally been pruning from our lives, fighting for that whitespace my family NEEDS.

It has been so fulfilling and healing to get to just h a n g o u t with our friends: going for a hike, going to the park, the zoo, enjoying picnics and a hot dog roast, having adult conversation, both deep and light-hearted.

And I have felt the anxiety receding, the joy flowing once more. Life is too short to live at a breakneck pace. Quality over quantity. Intentionality. Investing in our friendships. And lots of whitespace. To process, to plan, to just be. To be available when spontaneous opportunities present themselves.”

Shea Moore, November 2019

White space.

Like the static between television programming that doesn’t even exist anymore. Because there is almost no such thing as “between” anymore in our culture. It’s just a non-stop pace – in television programming, in scheduling, in shopping, in activities and just go-go-going. The constant feeling of being behind, whether we’re late or not. The day, the clock, my schedule, always seems to be running ahead of where I think I’m going to be. I needed to find the space between the dials. The white noise of a white space.

But then there are other forms of white space, too – the white places of a canvas not yet painted – the space of potential, where anything could be painted and created because it’s not been determined yet what needs to be there. It’s an empty block on the calendar with no plans, no scribblings, no color-coding. Just whiteness. It’s a blank page, ready for what’s to be written.

It’s space to be, to dream, to hope, to think (oh, couldn’t we all use space to think?!) It’s the place I find in a road trip, while my husband drives and the kids are entertaining themselves and my mind finally has some time to itself and it dreams of what could be and somehow in that 8 hours (because in our life it’s always 8 hours going this way or that) I have re-designed my whole home in my head and I’m ready to tackle it, or I have thought of a new way to organize our life, and it just feels like change is imminent, because my mind has had white space to think organized thoughts.

It’s also, though, so much more importantly, a space to just be. together. Because I often feel like I can only think apart from the chaos. And this is true. But the only place I can form true connection with my family is smack in the middle of the chaos that is family. It’s not being annoyed at the distraction they cause, but letting go of the distraction the world causes so they, my family, the people I cherish, become the focus rather than the distraction.

I read yesterday in an article by Joanna Gaines in her magazine, Magnolia Journal, that hit this nail so much on the head.

“And it’s made me wonder how many quiet miracles are happening all around us on a daily basis, and how many of them we fail to experience when we’re busy looking down. . . .

Who we become is shaped more in the mundane than by the milestones. Rather than how their birthdays get celebrated, my kids are more likely to absorb the conversations we shared during car rides, the moments that I said yes to them and no to a distraction, how safe they felt when I tucked them into bed at night.

I was wrong to blame time for so many years, to call it a thief for moving too fast. I’ve found that the real thieves are distractions and our willingness to give into them . . .

Right now, this very second, this is the gift. These are the days. These are the moments. This season, let’s look up and behold the beauty of the here and now.”

Joanna Gaines, Magnolia Journal, Winter 2019

White space. This is what we’re talking about. The joy in this moment. This in-between. Not looking to fill it while we wait for the next thing, but to just be in it. And to look up and see those around us, all in the in-between together. And enjoying that moment.

This white space. It’s what fueled us to pile all frivolous into the car one Sunday afternoon. No electronics, except mom’s phone, playing Adventures in Odyssey through the bluetooth. Driving somewhere new, where nature beckoned, leaves all orange and yellow and brown, to the edges of a babbling stream with little waterfalls all over, with beauty enough to earn it a name after the giant rushing streams of Niagara. It’s taking off the shoes and the socks to let them wade in freezing November water, of veering off the trail to tromp on sticks and leaves, over brambles and bugs, to sit on a fallen log and just watch them be children, feeling like explorers. Where the whining of “I don’t want to go in the woods” becomes, “This is so much fun!”

Fun. And giggles. And sitting together. And exploring together. Without a screen in front of them. Without a screen in front of me.

And this is where my new year is burning brightest. This hope that we can spend a whole year (2020 – the number that speaks to seeing clearly, interesting, isn’t it?), that will beckon an entire decade, and then a life, or a series of lives, that seeks the beauty of the white space and fights with fervency to protect it. To not be caught up in the spiraling chaos of a culture that doesn’t stop, but to break free of the net and see each other and fill that space with the beauty of relationship, of love, and giggles, and community.

Here’s to the white space.