"We move through negative spaces and dwell in positive spaces."

Thanks to Matthew Frederick, architect, for his clear and precise rendering of our human condition and our shared aspiration to be fully alive. ("101 Things I Learned in Architecture School) The thing is that he is talking, at least explicitly, about design and how we inhabit our built environment - living in the space (positive) and not the walls and roofs that boundary it (negative). "Negative spaces tend to promote movement rather than dwelling in place," he notes. So simple and yet not so easy.

We move through the negative spaces - out of holes and darkness, toward movement and light. Through the birth canal and into the world, our baby will come, from the safe, warm confines of the uterine walls into a world where distinguishing the negative from the positive is not always obvious at first. But still, left to choose we naturally migrate from the transitional space to the the space where we can find some room, find light. We as parents don't necessarily create these spaces, but rather offer up the ways to distinguish one from the other, to know where the positive spaces are. Eventually, our child will know too. The funny thing is that the baby, the child, is less apt to want to dwell in the boundaries. They want to move. Mine tells me every day in the womb that s/he is seeking room - a knee jutting out, a back rolling to the left, little arms flapping into my taut belly.

It is up to me, to us as parents, not to get stuck in the transitional spaces, in the places we have to go through to get to what' next, but where we never need to live. Like transition - those minutes in labor when it may be hard to see, to feel more than the negative, when I may believe that it will always be painful, that I can't do it, that the sensation is too strong.

I can't NOT go there. And, it is no place to dwell either. Something comes next. Moving through. I heard someone say recently that their new parent friends said the day before the baby was born, they couldn't imagine having her in their lives. The day after, they couldn't imagine life without her.

Becoming is in me, in us, always. The question is who we choose to be our teachers, who we allow to shape, influence, support and challenge us, even when the lessons feel uncomfortable or just completely unfamiliar. This baby. Matthew Frederick, architect. The client who most bugs me. An echoing voice inside.

How do I listen from where I am meant to dwell?