Liminality
a note from a middle place
There are times in life where everything seems to stand still, and I am writing to you from one such moment. I’m nursing a neck injury that has stripped me of my daily routines and left me unable to move easily, sleep, drive, work, knit, or concentrate. It’s temporary and I will be ok, but it’s also not a quick fix. So here I sit in a blip of time, a threshold, a short circuit, a liminal moment sidelined from the every day. There are other, hidden places in our timelines, I discover. And sometimes, unexpectedly, we might have to stay a while.
Today I settled into a slip of sunlight in my lounge room and attempted to read a book for the first time in a fortnight. With a foggy, medicated head and delicate movements I read a few pages of Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald.
Macdonald writes of a solar eclipse, and I found her description of it mirroring this liminal experience of mine:
“Each fugitive point of light was a different person. I laughed out loud. I’d wanted a solitary revelation but had been given something else instead: an overwhelming sense of community, and of what it is made - a host of individual lights shining briefly against oncoming darkness.” (p. 76).
As food and flowers have been delivered to my doorstep and messages have flowed in from friends and family these little points of light have reminded me of all that is good - including my beautiful husband who has been reading me an essay from Vesper Flights each night as I attempt to fall asleep: thank you.
A while ago (two years actually) I wrote about a book by Christobel Mattingley documenting the life of little-known Australian artist Ebenezer Edward Gostelow who painted the most beautiful native birds and flowers:
It’s a comfort book for me (discovered in a secondhand bookshop and posted across the Nullarbor by my dearest friend EP) and I have been looking for it for weeks. Today, I found it on my bookshelf where it had been sitting all along right in front of me. Perhaps it too had slipped into this parallel thread of time and it was only here I was able to find it again. I’ve enjoyed gingerly flicking through its pages today when reading and comprehending full sentences became too much (which, I have to admit, didn’t take long - I think I managed one and a half groggy pages of Vesper Flights).
Other things…
I thought it might be a good time to revisit this book, due two-fold to the current season and this blip in life I am trying my best not to push against.
I’ve been listening to and building on this playlist over the past few months. Usually I like to listen to it in my headphones while I’m working, but am leaning on it now for a touch of calm. Maybe you’ll enjoy it too.
For anyone who experiences pain, this has been on repeat, particularly in the darkest hours of the night, and I am deeply grateful for it. First arrow. Second arrow. First arrow. Second arrow. I repeat, repeat, repeat.
I am not sure what this next fortnight might bring. So let’s hold steady with small anchors: a slow walk to the end of the street once, maybe twice a day, a fire, rotating heat packs, a few pages read slowly in a slip of afternoon light, deep breaths when the fear of uncertainty arises (as it does, often and again), and opening to a sense of acceptance that liminal phases come, and - from what little I know of this life - also go. When? It’s ok not to know. Repeat, repeat.
And that’s quite enough for now.
Until next time, travel light.
P.S. It has taken me many days to write this, slowly slowly - please forgive the delay as well as any errors - I can only hope it makes at least a little sense. Otherwise… I suppose it is doing its job by marking this liminal time and place where thoughts are wonky and uncertain and the edges of things shimmer.
In case you missed it:
About the author
Lucinda Bain is a contemporary Australian writer based in Naarm/Melbourne, whose work explores motherhood, place, memory, suburban life and the natural world. Lucinda is mother to three daughters – a role that deeply informs much of her writing. She is currently studying librarianship at the master’s level, which complements her identity as a reader, writer, researcher and observer of how stories locate themselves in both home and landscape.
So sorry to hear you’re in so much pain, Lucinda! I feel this deeply, as I’m 10 months into the lower back version. I keep thinking I’ve stopped fighting it, only to discover I’m fighting it at a more subconscious level ha.
I read this gorgeous quote from Thoreau’s journal this morning:
‘Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Be blown on by all the winds. Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of Nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons. Why, "nature" is but another name for health, and the seasons are but different states of health.’
Sending you love in this season, which will pass xo
Thanks Lucinda for this post and the links to your playlist and the meditation track. I have the playlist on now and it is so beautiful and calming.
Wishing you a swift and gentle recovery from your pain. It sounds awful and I’m reminded of my life some years back when pain dominated my life. Pain is an old friend of mine and has risen and fallen over the years.
Years ago my neurologist recommended a book written by neurologists called Explain Pain. Through this and his gentle counsel I learnt about what pain is and how to manage it, and my life improved tenfold. Learning to not be up against it, to know when my brain and body are needing to rest and to use mindfulness was a breakthrough.
Take care dear Lucinda.
Much love, as always x Meg