The Lens Part 2: A Question of Space

Surprisingly, I do not write about fire. I don't write about starting fires, running from fires, the fear or joy that fires bring. Truth is, there has been so much fire in my life, it is amazing that I have not tried to exorcise it from my mind. California was on fire much of my youth. The Middle East was on fire during my time there. In 1995, February 10, I crawled out of a burning building with my friend Heather. That last one was the fire of fires.

The apartment house fire left me homeless for about eight months.

Being homeless, at least for me at that time of my life, was not a difficult thing. I was homeless, yes, but I was still enrolled in classes, and I still had a job. I had somewhere to be for much of the day. I also did not have any possessions. What I was able to salvage from the fire, went into a garage of my buddy and roommate at the time, Ryan's mother house. I did not ever need to see any of those things ever again. In short, after the fire, I had a change of clothing, the skin on my back, and I was free.

For me, that year of 1995 was a wide open expanse. I had a sprawling amount of space. I stayed on sofas here and there until May. In May I went off to Mexico City, a love affair with the place that would go on for six years. Then I went to Camp Cris Dobbins, the first year of several that I would spend with the Boy Scouts of America.

But it was the freedom of having nothing, and having no obligations that really made me have different thoughts entirely. I had space. I had space to think.

Having space, and it's meant in a few different ways, is a big thought. Sure, it was 1995 Denver, and that in itself meant space. Denver was not the place then that it is now. In 1995, I could walk the whole length of 14^th Street downtown and not see another person. And in 1995 the place was vacant, yes, but we hadn't built out every square inch. But this is not the space I'm talking about.

The space I mean, of course, was internal. Having to be at work in the mornings, and having to be in classes in the afternoons, I did not have a particularly hectic schedule. Now, I was young then and any schedule I may have had probably would not have been overly demanding at the time and it would be even more diminutive with memory.

It's now a question of space that comes to me. It seems like I have less space between all the things that happen to me in the course of a day. I mean, who am I to talk? I have the easiest schedule of any middle aged person in America. I walk my little boy to school, I go off to yoga class, I write for a little while and then I go to work. I do not work hard, believe me. But where is the space?

I suppose, I could say that space is all a state of mind, or at least a perspective.

I feel like space is an important thing for any creative person. As I write this, I have my little desk in the small corner of my office. I feel crowded in the room with the other desks, my wife's and my son's, and the bookcases, and the messy art projects that litter the floor. But my desk is clean. And in the small glow of my lamp, this space is mine alone and it feels good.

It feels good like all of Denver in 1995 when I had nothing. When I had my notebook, a bicycle and all the public places and spaces for daydreaming and naps.

Whatever the case, all day and night in the wide open world or a closet of an office, having space to work and daydream and think and exist and create, this is a good thing. A very good thing indeed.