The Space Between (Two Tall Mountains)
In early 2019 I flew to Santiago to begin a criss-crossing journey towards Patagonia. Over the next few months I hitched and hiked vast and sublime topographies throughout the southernmost region of the Americas. Staying in my small green tent, or in the refugios that pepper the mountains, and crossing the borders of Chile and Argentina many times, this time in Patagonia was freeing in a way that I have never felt before. I could go anywhere, and had my home on my back. With my elementary Spanish I found the camaraderie of silence and laughter on remote trails, running into a lone gaúcho or hiker. I meet two people from British Columbia and hike 20km at 1AM with them to watch a sunrise hit the mountains. I fall briefly in love with a lone boy from Brazil who buys me an orange. I welcome 2020 by submerging in a frigid clear-blue glacier pool.
I do a lot of birdwatching.
Later, I fly to the Atacama Desert, and find views I had only thought existed in dreamscapes and science fiction. I go to Bolivia and speak in a hybrid of languages with Alvaro about politics as he drives us across the Uyuni Salt Flats and into La Paz, where I eat llama and quinoa at his friend’s restaurant. After flying back to Canada with a broken tooth and empty bank account, a few months later I am on the road again, this time going from the salty shores of Belize to the dense jungles of Guatamala.
Somewhere along the way, the music of Connie Converse became like gospel. Listening to her on repeat, the sounds of a 1950s home-recording filled hours and miles, her lyrics a meditation for wandering. Converse, an enigma in artistry and biography, disappeared in 1974, leaving a note telling her family “Let me go. Let me be if I can. Let me not be if I can't.” In March, when the world quickly shifts into one of pandemic and fear, I make my way towards Ontario in staggered steps as borders close on my heels. Connie remains a source of comfort. Listening to her in isolation from my crowded childhood bedroom, I watch birds through the window.
The Space Between is a short film created in Winter 2021 through interspersing landscape footage taken in South and Central America with prose about hiking and vagabonding over many years and across many countries. Meditating on queer belonging and the migration of birds, The Space Between is a love letter to Connie Converse and to women who walk away.
You can check out the film’s Rough Cut (complete with copy-editing errors) on the link below! This project would not have been possible without the guidance and companionship of Ara Osterweil and her cohort of creatives.
The Space Between (Click here to to view)
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