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"For it is only framed in space that beauty blooms. Only in space are events and objects and people unique and significant - and therefore beautiful. A tree has significance if one sees it against the empty face of sky. A note in music gains significance from the silences on either side. A candle flowers in the space of night. Even small and casual things take on significance if they are washed in space, like a few autumn grasses in one corner of an Oriental painting, the rest of the page bare."
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh Gift from the Sea

As Candace and I drove last week from Chicago to Atlanta, space engulfed us at points. Space is the norm in the huge farms of the midwest, where a neighbor is a mile away and the nearest grocery store is a 30 minute drive. Along I-77 at night, the space and silence of the mountains provided us with a beautiful vision of the sky, lite with stars and inviting to questions of what's beyond.

Space holds two tensions in the literal and theoretical meaning, providing plenty of room while fearing loneliness. Anne Morrow Lindbergh creates an image of space where the freedom and vastness provide release instead of constriction, grace instead of rejection, and room to grow into your own being.

We all need our space...sometimes it's just hard to get there and even harder to live in it.