I hope it does not age me too much if I tell you that a line of prose from Khalil Gibran has been on my mind for the last couple of days. I don’t see or hear too much about his work anymore but in the late 1970’s (there is the aging me part) and 1980’s his work was extremely popular, especially among young women wantabe poets. (Guess who?)
 
The line echoing through my mind has been, “But let there be spaces in your togetherness…” it is from his poem called Marriage. I wasn’t sure why this particular line was toying me with until this morning on my early morning drive across the state, from Kalamazoo to Troy, for a meeting with the Kresge Foundation. 
 
Then I realized it is the “spaces” that he refers to that I am missing. My unfortunate tendency is to be so “married” to the early childhood movement in Michigan that there is not much space between it and me.  As Gibran says so eloquently, “…stand together, yet not too near together…the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.” 
 
I am feeling a bit of that shadow creeping over my pleasure in the work. And I am mindful that what I am able to bring to the movement, I care so deeply about, is diminished when I don’t make sure there is space between it and me. Space for rest and reflection, silliness and nonsense, and hopefully an armload of books.
 
I know I am not alone in my “marriage” difficulties – and my hope is that each of you will acknowledge and honor your need for “spaces” during this lovely summer season. Our ability to sustain this movement through the coming transition in November depends on it. 
 
I won’t be posting a blog next week as I will be in Toronto taking my own advice with my the loves of my life – my husband, my two children and my grandson.