Life in Liminal Space
At the beginning of 2022, I decided to pursue a certification in permaculture design. I started making plans for the design project I would implement at home, while also strategizing how I would balance a new schedule with my current one. I also decided to sign up for a 21-day writing challenge that related to permaculture. I longed for a jolt to my creativity and imagined the pages upon pages of publishable content that would spring forth from the daily exercises and practice. The first prompt was about liminal space.
The in-between. The transition from one place to another. In permaculture, physical liminal spaces exist between each zone, eventually connecting our designed ecology to the “wild” that surrounds us. Of course, there are psychological liminal spaces as well. Shortly after making all my pretty plans, they were abruptly and drastically disrupted. We were informed that the house we’ve lived in for the last seven years is going to be sold and we have to find a new place to live — in a city with a housing crisis. My most immediate plans for mulching the gardens in preparation for spring planting gave way to planning how to shine up our credit scores and where to look for additional income sources.
I found myself in this space of knowing that my days sitting in this particular room, by this particular window, are coming to a fast-approaching end, while not knowing what the next room or window will look like. To be perfectly honest, I lost my momentum when I could no longer see where I was going. I didn’t even finish the second writing prompt (although I still have them all marked as unread in my inbox, waiting for me to revisit them).
Liminal space is not comfortable, and it’s not meant to be. Transitions are very rarely made without some discomfort, even minor ones. I remember the small discomfort I felt as a child when transitioning from one class to the next. Sometimes, it was caused by a desire to continue whatever I was doing in the prior class; other times it was out of uncertainty of what was to come in the next class, or even excitement to get there.
As I write this today, I am slowly navigating this space. I will go ahead with the mulching where I am now, as permaculture includes investing in a future I won’t see. I will get back to the writing prompts, as they will help me recover from the hours spent on job boards. And I will start to dream up new plans for a new place, even if I don’t know where it is.
