Forty years ago this past Tuesday, I spent the day in a hospital with my wife of two years and a brand new baby. Fast forward to this past Tuesday (and every day this past week) and I find me in this very same hospital, working. What happened in between? Nothing. And everything. From the biggest big picture perspective of Life as it is, to the miniscule meanderings of me over this single lifetime of in-between, …nothing, …and everything. And I am still traversing this in-between; a place so large it can swallow entire cities, states, nations, civilizations, whole, and simultaneously a place so small that when it suits my purpose I am able to flick it away with a nonchalant wave of my little finger; (the same little finger our brand new baby held in her tiny hand all the way up the elevator 40 years ago this week).

I seldom flick away my in-between; my meanderings. These things are far too important. I am more likely to flick away Pompeii, Persepolis, Mesa Verde, the Mayans, the many crimes of Genghis Khan, the Indian Removal Act, slavery, the Holocaust, and even today’s failure in capitalism and our government as inconsequential, unimportant to my purpose, my meaning.

Everything.

…and nothing.

This week I read the following from the book “The Plot” a work of fiction written by Jean Hanff Korelitz:

“Stories, of course, are common as dirt. Everyone has one, if not an infinity of them, and they surround us at all times whether we acknowledge them or not. Stories are the wells we dip into to be reminded of who we are, and the ways we reassure ourselves that, however obscure we may appear to others, we are actually important, even crucial to the ongoing drama of survival: personal, societal, and even as a species.”

Stories. The in-between. A hazy, wavery, ever-changing landscape of memories and moments and plans. Stories constantly change according to the momentary who, what, where, when, why. So if stories remind us of who we are, yet they constantly change according to circumstance and opportunity, then who are we? Can there be a succinct single defining characterization? Or am I this huge complexity of conflicting desires, misremembered experience, and delusional (un)certainty? I suppose the story I tell in the moment is who I am in the moment. So if I tell the same story over and over and over and over again, perhaps I start to believe; and if I wield enough power, perhaps others also start to believe. Yet it remains merely a story. Everything.

…and nothing.

Here in my 7th decade, I am growing more and more okay with the realization that this in-between is both everything and nothing. I am becoming more and more actively appreciative of the opportunity to seek Wisdom and Truth and Beauty and Justice, knowing that in its Perfection it will never be found. I am becoming more and more cognizant of our purpose here as individuals and as a species: not wealth or power; not legacy; not mere existence, nor even survival; but mutually contributory coexistence with All of Life. Here in my 7th decade I realize that in the same sense my stories are both nothing and everything, I am also both nobody and everybody.

As nobody, I sit here in this very moment and immerse my self in this very moment; the late-night quiet, the satisfaction of a good meal and good company, the warm smell of apples, dried fruits, brown sugar, citrus, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, cloves cooking down to a thick jammy consistency deserving of a cast iron double-crust bed of golden-brown flaky extrapolated goodness to be continued tomorrow.

As nobody another may be sitting in darkness, in sickness, in sadness or anger, in worry or sorrow, in power or health or wealth. As nobody each one of us is telling, living a momentary story.

As everybody I am mindful of future memories, future moments, future plans. As everybody I learn from the past to live in the moment for the future. As everybody I am disheartened by bureaucracy, convention, certainty, division. As everybody I will continue to seek Beauty, Truth, Wisdom, Justice.

As nobody I will pass on.

As everybody I will coexist.