Land Between Storms

Driving home yesterday, dashing through puddles left from an earlier shower, racing to reach the house before the skies opened for another deluge, I thought about where I was. It was an interval of time, true, but it was also a place. The Land between Storms. The terrain: Steaming pavement, black clouds, a feel in the air that was part peace and part anticipation.

How many other times are places? The week between Christmas and New Year's Day, the last week of May. But these are fixed in time, not mobile like the Land Between Storms.

There is also the place that springs up after a blizzard. A world of white — silent for an hour or two then filled with the sound of snowblowers whirring and shovels scraping.

It has taken me a long while to realize the commonality of these experiences, how they pull together sights, sounds and smells so reliably, so ineluctably, that I can find the places every time.