The space between things is the thing.
I learned long ago, from a very wise man, that “the only real work in creative endeavor is keeping things from falling together too soon.” A corollary to that notion would be that, having held the structural elements apart as long as possible, when they do come together, let them really clang. (Paul Metcalf)
This is Chatwin’s “value of absence.” Like Cezanne, like Hemmingway, the white space between the brushstrokes, the power of the unsaid.
In cities, that tension holds the world together. We move in the spaces between things physically, but also narratively, labeling what’s unlabeled, fleshing out the empty pockets in our heads, turning streets into journeys, apartments into homes. We do it in the present, and also through time. That Rhode Island story of locals telling newcomers to “turn left where the gas station used to be” makes absence a landmark. The spaces between buildings, and the spaces buildings leave behind.
