The Air Between Us....

By Marilyn Moore

“The air between us...” a phrase uttered by Edward, a teenage boy who is the main character in the novel Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano.  This is the story of a boy who is the sole survivor of an airplane crash.  In the novel, Edward has to rebuild his life – physically, cognitively, socially, emotionally…in absolutely every way, while living with his aunt and uncle, in a home that is new to him, a new community, a new school, and blessedly, a new best friend, Shay, a girl his own age, who lives next door, who manages the just right balance of “watches out for him,” and “cuts him no slack.”

His high school physics teacher introduces him to the Large Hadron Collider and the research on particle physics, attempting to answer the questions of the smallest particles, their speed, their behavior, their relationship to one another.  In Edward’s mind, the questions are at the very heart of existence….his, and everyone else’s.  And as the story draws to an end, and Edward is healing, is stronger in every way, he reflects on all the people who were a part of his re-building process – especially his uncle, his physics teacher, his principal, and Shay.  And in reflecting, he utters the words, “The air between us…is not dead space.”

I’m struck by Edward’s story, for so many reasons.  I started my career as a middle school teacher, and I shall always and forever have a special place in my heart for the students in the middle.  Edward was 12 when the plane crashed, right in the middle of middle school, which is a hard growing-up time for most early adolescents.  Like Edward, I’m attracted to the wonders of our world revealed by the physicists, and the metaphors for life from particle physics.  And like Edward, I wonder about the air between us…and I so agree that it is anything but dead space.

Right now, the air between us feels unstable, like that of an approaching storm.  Or perhaps that in the midst of the storm.  It feels like it’s fast moving, and it’s loud, and it’s disruptive.  On one of my walking routes, I walk the bike trail along Highway 2 between 17th and 27th Streets.  Lots of traffic on the highway, everything from huge semis to SUVs to motorcycles, all going fast, whoosh.  It’s my metaphor for the past three weeks, beginning with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death….a big whoosh.  And before we could grieve and mourn and celebrate her life, the nomination of another justice, at an event that turned into a super spreader for Covid-19….another big whoosh.  And then, the first presidential debate….great big whoosh.  Followed by the announcement that the President was diagnosed with Covid-19…another big whoosh.  Followed by the vice-presidential debate, complete with fly, and for every woman, seeing all over again the reality that men talk over and interrupt women all the time….great big whoosh.  

And the other events that make the headlines, like rapidly increasing cases of Covid and deaths from Covid, and George Floyd’s alleged murderer is free on bond, and Breonna Taylor’s killer is not charged with her death, and governors try to limit election drop boxes but are stopped by judges from doing so, and a right-wing extremist group in Michigan plots to abduct the governor….every one of them, another whoosh…. 

And the other happenings, the everyday events in the lives of our neighbors….a friend’s daughter dies, another friend’s mother is once again isolated in a care facility, another friend recovers from a complicated surgery, a family member receives a concerning health report, a new baby is born, a marriage is celebrated in a very different way than planned a year ago…these are the events I’d like to give time and undivided attention to, but it’s hard, with all the whooshes from the rapid movement in the air between us.  

So what to make of the noisy, fast-paced, clanging, unstable air between us?  As always, I’m searching for connections.  Those fast-moving vehicles, they’re connecting – people to jobs, family members to family members, goods to consumers, services to those who need them, people who need to get away from it all for a while.  And all those loud and disruptive whooshes in our political and civic life…they’re reminding us that we’re connected to one another, too.  Connected by our shared life in a world, a nation, a community, with both opportunity and responsibility to make it better.  Indeed, the major disruptors of the past seven months – the pandemic, the racial tensions made real and visible again (which are rooted in centuries of systemic racism), the 2020 election – all are outward and visible signs of our connectedness with one another, and the challenges of those disruptors will be resolved only by strengthening the connections between and amongst us. 

It is my hope that the air between us will be strengthened by decisions we make, decisions that honor the expertise of science, decisions that affirm the greater good, decisions that lift one another up, decisions to listen, to learn, to love.  (The social studies teacher in me is compelled to note that the way we make collective, community decisions is through voting.  If you’re not yet registered to vote, it’s not too late.)  It is my hope that as we strengthen connections, the noise, or the pace of the noise, or the stress from the noise, will diminish, and that we know that by tending to the new baby, the isolated grandparent, the grieving parent, we’re also affirming and strengthening those life-giving connections.  The air between us is not dead space…it is what we create it to be.  What an awesome obligation…what an awesome gift.  

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