top of page

The In-Between 101

Writer's picture: Liz KnowlesLiz Knowles

I was an artist-in-residence for three weeks at Cill Rialaig Arts Center this past January. Yes, the west coast of Ireland in January! It was a remarkable experience and I will share more of this later in the blog but for this post, I share with you what came out of that residency.


I have been obsessed with the arrivals, landings and leavings of notes for quite some time. This view of musical notes can be a parallel to life, really, can't it? In my life, but in particular in the last three years, i have experienced some of the most intense versions of these arrivals, landings and leavings through grief and loss, physical injury and through the transitory nature of being a traveling musician.


 

"Travel is flight and pursuit in equal parts."

Paul Theroux, "The Tao of Travel"

 

These liminal spaces, the places where things overlap, change, transform and become are what I have come to believe are the best places to be, though they often prove the most challenging.


This in-between-ness is actually everywhere. It shows up everywhere for me.

It shows up in my writing, my notes, my music, my practice, and my playing. Even my learning of Irish music was the result of an 'in-between' in life. And I think it is a universally human experience–the existence of it but also the uncomfortableness of it and the importance of it in our lives if we want growth and discovery.


 

"There is the in-breath– a time in which we expand, grow and heal– and the out-breath– a time for creating and contributing to the world and of integration of what we have learned so we can show up in a new way in our lives."

Emily J Hooks, The Power of Forgiveness


 

The in-between is not always visible or palpable until after the fact. If it is uncomfortable, it can be made manageable if looked at with kinder eyes. It is incredibly life affirming. It is a source of creativity. It is the time where we prove our mettle, where we are our strongest and our weakest, sometimes at the same time. It is beautiful. It is always changing and sometimes that change is what is uncomfortable. It is sometimes unknowable and unpredictable. It is charged with transformation and a becoming. And I am all in.

150 views1 comment

Recent Posts

See All

1 Comment


Bruce Nuelken
Aug 11, 2020

Life has felt a lot like the In-Between as of late... Thanks for your thoughts.

Like

© 2020 by Liz Knowles

bottom of page