Ordinary Distances

We measure distance in miles and hours, but the distances that matter are measured in something else entirely.

I have been thinking about the distance between people who live in the same house. The way two people can share a kitchen, a bed, a life, and still be separated by distances that have no unit of measurement. The way you can be close to someone in every physical sense and still feel the particular loneliness of not being known.

And the opposite: the way distance in miles can mean almost nothing. The friend I have not seen in four years who feels closer to me than people I see every week. The way a letter can cross a distance and arrive as presence.

I grew up in a small town where everyone knew everyone, and I used to think that proximity was the same as connection. I have since learned that they are not the same thing. You can be surrounded by people who know your name and your family and your history and still feel entirely alone. And you can be alone in a city of millions and feel, in certain moments, entirely accompanied.

The distances that matter are the distances between what we feel and what we say. Between who we are and who we allow others to see. Between the life we are living and the life we imagined we would live.

These are the ordinary distances. We all travel them, every day, mostly without noticing. They are the distances of the interior — unmappable, unnavigable by any instrument except attention.

I am trying to pay attention to them. I am trying to close some of them. I am trying to accept that some of them cannot be closed, and that this is not a failure but a condition of being human.

The ordinary distances are where we live.