In her debut, Thin Places: Essays from In Between, Jordan Kisner orients readers to thin places at their edges, in the space that is “in between.” Thin places, Kisner will remind those who plumb the depths of this collection, occur when “the barrier between the physical world and the spiritual world wears thin and becomes porous.” If thin places sound at all mystical, it’s no doubt due to their Celtic origins. In the face of these realities, I realized I stood on the edge, in-between, in a thin place. And yet, I stepped into a community of people whose bodies are subject to forms of judgement and prejudice and abuse, even death, that I cannot even begin to understand because these things are reserved for people whose skin and experience is different from my own.

The color of my skin affords me the benefit of the doubt, no matter what. I do not worry about what I wear or what I eat because of my gender. I do not worry about undue treatment because of the color of my skin or the language I speak or my sexual orientation or my socioeconomic status. In my white privilege, I do not worry about being killed by police. With each step I took toward flowers and cards and pictures drawn on construction paper with crayons and markers by those still learning their letters and words, every glance of George’s face spray painted on boarded windows and imprinted on t-shirts, I realized I had entered a different space. The officer’s knee rested on George’s neck, even as George cried, “I can’t breathe,” and the crowd pleaded with the office to stop, to no avail. A block over from where I stood, George Floyd was murdered by a policeman just days before. On the paper were the words, …killing us. Yet, underneath this word a sheet of white typing paper was attached at its edges with electric tape. When I came near the sign, I noticed it was different. Stop, it said, and cars and bikes and pedestrians did. The letters on the sign are white and centered. The background is a deep red, like blood. On the edge, where Columbus and Chicago Avenues meet in Minneapolis, a familiar sign is plunged past concrete, into layers of soil. Thin Places: Essays from the In Between by Jordan Kisner

Thin places essays from in between