Where in the World is Nowhere?, by Betsy

Once a week now for three years I have sat down to write on some topic for the Sage Telling My Story group.  These are the steps I take to accomplish that task. First I mull the topic over in my mind and come up with an idea. “Oh, I know,” say I, “I’ll write about the time that........., or I’ll write about my parents, or I’ll write about my trip to......, or I’ll write about coming out to my sister, or I’ll comment on the last election.” Many, many ideas have come to mind. Next, I sit down at my computer and start writing.

A few sentences appear on the screen.  The next step is that I say to myself, “This is going nowhere.”  Well, now that I’m writing about nowhere, I find that today my writing actually has a place to go. Of course, we all know that to say this is going nowhere means there is nothing more to say about this event or this person or this feeling or this whatever I’m writing about.  However in this case I can at least describe what “nowhere” looks like to me.

 In the case of composing a so-called story entitled “Nowhere,” now that I am at stage three of the writing process, I find that what “nowhere” looks like in a piece of writing is “nothing.” It looks like nothing, a blank page, an empty mind, no way to tie anything together or to relate the ending to the beginning thoughts.  A void.

Speaking of a void, the question comes to mind: What is nothing. Is there such thing as “nothing?”  That brings me to the subject of the cosmos. We used to think that space was nothingness. But it turns out that where there appears to be nothing, there is actually quite a lot. The so-called black holes of the cosmos are full of compacted cosmic material. The space in between objects, only APPEARS as nothing.  The space in outer space, apparently empty, is full.  Beyond that, cosmic space itself is full of “dark matter.”  Apparently there is no such thing as nothing, our human senses simply cannot perceive what is there. If there is no such thing as nothing, then I guess there is no such thing as nowhere.  What we call nowhere really is somewhere, a certain place.

I’m am so happy to have come to this conclusion because now I can move on to stage four and work out an ending for this composition.  And here it is.  THE END.

© 1 Feb 2014 

About the Author   

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.