I am now sitting by my white Ikea desk I got for a room I am only spending 1, maximum 2 years living in. I gave myself off-time for this weekend due to period pain, so this state of home-y haze is only temporary in this specific spatial arrangement.
The idea of this piece has been planted in my mind weeks ago when I wrote about liminality for the first time. I have been wondering whether there is more to this topic for me and whether there is something more worth sharing. I thought yes, so here we go.
Simply, liminal spaces are the locations of transitional use, and moments of time when it is not yet decided. Liminality is about movement through the static. The swirling chaos in space, in time, in your life - when it would be time to stop but you wonder about what will happen when you arrive to the Elsewhere.
“Liminal spaces are transitional or transformative spaces, and such places are often associated with a forlorn atmosphere, a disconnection from the concept of reality, and a fluid or sometimes neglected aesthetic. They are the waiting areas between one point in time and space and the next.” - goes the definition by the popular online mental health support service, BetterHelp in their article What is liminal space and how does it affect you?
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the adjective ‘liminal’ comes from the Latin noun ‘limen’, which means “the point at which a physiological or psychological effect begins to be produced”. This can be a point being seemingly understood when in popular culture, we see imagery of liminal spaces as these dodgy, abandoned gas stations with neon lights covered in fog lending the place a mysterious aura and the image of teenagers going there to smoke some cigarettes at night knowing exactly how “Tumblr” they are.
Liminal places include, but are not limited to: stairwells, train stations, airport lobbies, places currently not used for their purpose but put on pause, parking lots, abandoned buildings, out-of-order lighthouses, elevators, hotel hallways, doctor’s waiting rooms, (especially at night, when the world is asleep, and is set up for mysteries) —
The in-between; where you are going through but not stopping, what is not used but serving as a necessary space or time through which you need to pass through to eventually reach your end goal. To get up to the 3rd floor, to visit your grandma just a train ride away, to travel far away and to arrive back home, to hang out with your high school friends deeply aware the moment will pass, — where the illusion dictates a moment of calm before the storm.
What we call a ‘liminal space’ depends on the scale and scope we are playing with mentally. Deep time for example is on a whole another level of understanding, one our little human brains cannot comprehend, most likely for the better. This lack of understanding leaves us with options of encountering magic, while not going crazy trying to store the immense amount of information of eternity. I know our human brains are like crazy good ‘supercomputers’ to use a metaphor coined most likely around the boom of new tech but it lacks the dimensional capacity of comprehending the Other.
Why is the question of the “Other” being raised here, with the important note of: I am refering to the “Somewhere Else”, not the colonial concept of the “Other people.” So where is the somewhere else? Sometimes it is a place you are going towards intentionally by train or through an airport lobby. Sometimes, maybe even most of the time, you do not know where the heck are you going. Metaphorically speaking we are always at a weird airport lobby (we call life), only knowing maybe the next destination, but not knowing how many times we’ll end up sitting yet again after buying a magazine and coffee in those comfy chairs staring out the window seeing other planes departing and landing, waiting for our turn.
The “Elsewhere” is an intriguing thought for the human mind. It is novel, it is exciting, it is something else. “The grass is always greener on the other side.” is a well-known commonplace, which is for the record true I think, and besides its connotation of “stop comparing yourself to other people”, it also means that we always want to be somewhere else. The “Elsewhere” is what we are yearning for. We cannot sit on our asses not even for a hot moment without wanting, desiring to be somewhere else.
Movement is life. Who keeps moving stays alive, as a biological and ‘rational’ survivial mechanism. Well now that we don’t need to look behind our backs whether there is a lion or any other high-speed, super elegant mammal wanting to haunt us down, our psychological survival is at stake. For which movement is yet again the way. And I think it is a good thing. It is a good thing to want to change inside and out, to go to new places, experience new things, talk to new people, and see what has not been seen by you as yet. The grass is indeed greener on the other side, but will you ask your neighbour for their tips on how to make a garden that green?
Back to my lovely desk in my temporary bedroom, with candles, coffee and my journals, I am wondering about why am I not jumping energetically around being happy for being alive here and now. Humans can only be happy (in my opinion at least) when they see options, opportunities, potential journeys ahead of them. It is still quite some weeks before I get to fly back home, so I had to find other activities and travels in the meanwhile, to fill up this internal liminal space I inhabit sitting here at this particular desk writing these lines on a Sunday morning.
It is f*in scary, I know. We are in the same shoes. So if we got to ever meet in real life you beautiful stranger, I hope we’ll see each other’s faces and conclude that hey, it is not that scary to ask what makes your garden so green. I assume we are all just floating through life as it is only a liminal space between the unknown Before and the unknown After.
A journaling prompt for you: What are you in between at this moment in time? Which direction are you going towards? Are you afraid of change? Why?
[Small note: all photos are made by me during some of my recent adventures and calm moments. :)]