The in-between places

There are places that deserve our gratitude, even though they never requested it. They are not fancy, and no word of poetry ever touched them. We didn’t fall in love at any of these in-between places. Most likely, we didn’t even stop there. Our eyes saw such places while traveling by car, train, or bus. Here, airplanes possess one advantage and one misfortune: you can’t see any in-between places from their windows.

The in-between places are humble, like the old chairs at our grandma’s place. Those chairs are old, fitted in a corner, and no one ever sits on them. They are old pieces of furniture, sometimes as old -we think- as the world of our grandmas. These old chairs are there to welcome you, and yet you don’t even consider to sit. They are memory islets in a sea of yesteryear. Although everybody loves islands, no one cares about lonesome rocks.

Such is the modesty of the in-between places as well. They don’t carry landmarks or legendary stories. You meet these places while moving from place to place. Sometimes you see an in-between place on the way from the airport to the city center. They can take the form of a field or a tired house. You stare at them with non-curious, non-sentimental eyes. Appreciation is not for them; we save it for luxurious shops, fancy patisseries, and museums where (we think) we can taste life.

We don’t identify with the in-between places. Their existence is rather indifferent. We tend to believe that we can live without them, that if a gigantic hand decided to delete them, we wouldn’t even miss them. What do these places contribute to our memories? Nothing, we reply, nada. And yet, sometimes, these fleeting images we saw behind a window grow inside us. Sometimes, when we think of an old journey, there’s an image of an in-between place popping up in our minds.

Why is this happening? Why, all of a sudden, a forgotten, almost misspelled image emerges from the darkness?

The in-between places and the walk down memory lane

We save our gratitude for neatly organized memories. For that perfect building we saw, or for that delicious meal. Doors and windows in their right order, dishes and glasses forming a symphony of good taste. Our minds appreciate symmetry, and they are so cruel that they even delete unwanted elements. You never remember a landmark with a wire cable running in front of it. You have to delete everything that puts beauty under question.

But the in-between places don’t request anything like that. You are allowed to remember the dry grass or that forgotten plastic bag. Their value is the absence of curation.

I remember, for example, a taxi ride from Minsk airport to the city. Fields, fields, and even more fields. And there, all of a sudden, a kitschy windmill in the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t curate the moment; I just pseudo-recorded it. And I, eventually, forgot it.

Years later, while reading about the situation in Belarus, I remembered the time I was there. And then, I didn’t recall the KGB or something about Lee Harvey Oswald. Nope, I didn’t remember the Gorky Park or that long avenue where I talked with some drunkard, requesting cigarettes, money, and -mainly- chatter.

All I recalled was that windmill.

Where to find the in-between places

Contrary to common belief, the in-between places are all around us. We think that these are the dead spaces we cross once and we’ll never see again. Their very existence is at stake because no one talks about them. Do they really exist?

But the in-between places aren’t just small stripes of land in otherwise glorious territories. The in-between places actually occupy the biggest part of Earth -and also, of the planet within us. The open spaces we cross when we are in transit are more or less in-between places. We use them -we think- to move from point A to point B. But the truth is that those places use us.

They use us in order to educate us. We think we don’t learn anything from all these fleeting images we see behind windows. And yet, unconsciously, we do. We learn that for every in-between place out there corresponds one within us. We are full of drylands and fertile valleys, full of broken walls, and forgotten plastic bags. Sometimes a journey from an airport to the city center equals a journey from one failure to another.

We walk through life, thinking that the start of a journey was awesome, and its end should be legendary. Then, we remain busy with ephemeral goals, and we ignore our own windows to the world. But being busy is one of the most ridiculous things in modern life.

Finally, we accomplish the goal only to realize that it might didn’t worth the hassle.

Eradicating symbolism

There’s nothing less heroic than an in-between place. It’s there to cross it, and it’s so democratic that it’s accessible to each one of us. No memories, no legends, not even a tiny bulb to highlight its importance. A pure impression going unnoticed.

But after remembering that windmill, I instantly wanted to elevate it to something more significant. It must mean something more, I thought. Then, I started building analogies: from a call to simple life all the way to Don Quixote. But the windmill itself, that dubious and rather kitsch element in the middle of nowhere, rejected it like a failed heart transplant.

The artifact wanted to remain free of symbolism. It’s as if it wanted to remain disconnected from everything. Its quality is, in fact, its need to remain raw. Embracing rawness was never infectious. Modern society is allergic to anything unrefined: people need filters and attached layers. We curate our memories because we want them to make sense. We must admit it: we prefer a bunch of Instagrammized photos for our life’s album than a long sequence of video shot in Super-8.

And somewhere there, in between this stress of curation and the absence of meaning, we meet the in-between places. They stand there, in the middle of nowhere, with their unimportance intact. They don’t shock us, but they arouse us from our drowsiness. If we still recall such places, either when we sleep or when we are awake, it’s because they remind us of something.

It’s not hard to define that. They remind us that we are alive not because we reached a goal or remained ecstatic in front of a landmark. No. They just remind us we go through life, but we are too busy to observe it. The goal blinded us, and -therefore- the inner journey got canceled. The sudden awakenings in the middle of nowhere failed to teach us anything. No windmill can explain why we ended chasing whatever once impressed us.

I remember that when I left that windmill behind, I thought of something banal. I wondered if my hotel room would have a balcony. Then, I left the taxi, and I didn’t think of that windmill for years. Future goals occupied my thoughts and needs.

I crossed plenty of in-between places since then. Only lately, I started paying attention to them. Nowadays, I remember more often that Belarussian windmill. Moreover, I remember the drywalls of Donoussa and not its beaches; I recall the tiles of Berlin’s subway and not the Brandenburg Gate. Even when my mind returns to Anafi, I don’t think of myself relaxing beneath the lonesome tamarisks; I just remember myself walking through fields full of golden fodders.

I can only dream of the future if I think of the in-between places. I’m sure, though, that the in-between places would also reject that, exactly like the old chairs repel the guests. These proud places, no matter how much they levitate, they never look towards the future.

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Last Updated on November 28, 2020 by George Pavlopoulos