Alex, though it’s clear from your essays that you are transitioning at the moment as you exist in the threshold of life, your positivity comes through clearly. You say you don’t have answers for us, but what you share in your own story are answers for many of us. What we could not define during certain periods of our lives you have clarified, which is an answer within itself. Allowing us to walk beside you in this journey of discovering who you will become is filled with anticipation for many of us who have come to care about how you feel. I know I am one. Since I first discovered your writings, your wisdom, your giving nature— I have been enthralled. After your accident and all the things you experienced from then to now made me willingly have hope for you as well as admiration. I see you as a man who has been granted a second chance in life which is a rare and miraculous occurrence. You worked so hard to get to where you are today and I am in awe at how much you have accomplished. You have been hurt with your divorce and I fully empathize. Yet, even through your pain you are helping others by sharing your feelings and that hurt, the accompanying uncertainty about the future, that nagging back of the mind questioning of how and why trying to escape is still giving doubts, yet you manage to keep it all in perspective. That is truly a testament to your deep seated character. Hope is what I get from reading your essays. It has been revealed to me from the beginning and I am so grateful I can still feel it here every time you post. Keep going forward my friend there is nothing but up once you have been at the bottom and found that power that hope provides. Thank you for continuing to be you! ❤️🌼
Thank you, my friend. I have been grateful to see your lovely comments throughout this crazy journey. It's been ten months!
I truly believe we all have second, third, fourth, and many chances when we lean back into ourselves. We, ourselves, are our own chance. I haven't yet found my words for that. But, I have found immense hope and power once I leaned back into myself. My personal knowledge. My love for myself and the world. Even though the world is burning, hateful, it is also full of so much good, so much life. That is what I'm finding essential on this journey. That is the perspective I'm finding for myself. Things can suck, yes. But there is always good. And we can feel both of those things.
Alex, this has me really thinking about my life and where I have been standing since October 2023. My middle daughter died shortly after I stepped on the threshold of old age as I defined it.
Grief, not for my age--but for loss of my daughter, was overwhelming, but instead of stuffing it down, I decided to embrace it.
This clearly marked a transition from being the mother of three alive children, to two live and one who moved to a different spiritual plane.
Embracing grief does not mean wallowing in it. For me, it means allowing it to be whatever it is in each moment. I am not in the same place I was 18-months ago, but it hovers sometimes further away and sometimes closer.
I am where I need to be right now.
One of the gifts of age is I long since have realized that transition takes up much larger portions of our lives than stasis.
What you write really allows me to evaluate where I am right now.
As Jules points out, "I am where I need to be" is such a powerful sentiment, and I'm really grateful you shared that with us. That statement is such a gift, such a magical mantra, Nancy.
I'm glad this post have you space to evaluate where you are at. And of course, where you are at, is where you need to be. And you have permission to be there, and to be somewhere else the next day. 🩵
As I continue to read your posts each week, I can't help but see poetry in what you write. Have you explored writing poetry a bit more? I remember your poem about mathematics, I think, that you shared in Notes not long ago. You have a natural cadence to your writing that sounds rhythmic when read, and you are gifted at selecting the best word choice to convey what you want to say.
Thank you, my friend, for this lovely callout. I have been exploring it a bit more! I may share more poetry soon! I owe you a debt of gratitude for the original nudge to lean into it. 🩵
Although I wouldn't say I am gifted at selecting the best word choice. I think I agonize. 😂
I don’t see what you share as agonizing, though I can understand why you might think that way. I am a ruminating type, so sometimes I can belabor a point. What I see in what you publish is not agonizing, but deep thinking. Looking at an issue from multiple angles, letting it sink in. Your writing operates at a slow pace, which I LOVE. My preference for reading, whether in short or long form writing, is a slow pace. It helps me enter the world of the writer and his/her mind. I find that to be the most edifying type of writing to read!
Another beautiful post. I've been reading David Whyte's writing recently - his poems in House of Belonging seem to echo what you write. And a poem by Ronna Bloom seems to speak to this place:
SHE IS CLEARING OUT THE SHELVES
What does she actually need?
A toaster, a teapot, a pen?
She is not the sort of person who picks up a tent and goes off
Thank you, Prajna! I've come to appreciate the transitional, liminal space. There might be some discomfort, but there is also new knowledge! I love it!
I was just writing a piece about childbirth and liminality, specifically focused on the moment before the cord is cut. But I'm also fascinated with the idea of pregnancy as liminality, and *transition* in the actual birth event. I remember transition! Truly a threshold, truly a challenge. And truly one of the best moments of my life.
Laury - I love that idea. I mean, the moment before the cord being cut is definitely a liminal moment of time. But I really like your extension of liminality to the entire experience of pregnancy. That would mesh with my conversations with many of my friends. And that moment of transition is so life-changing and a moment that really has no comparable experience. Wow. I really can't wait to read whatever piece you write.
I came to your Substack via a share from my friend Beth Gainer. I'm so glad I clicked and ended up reading your entire piece. It's quite profound and filled with valuable insights. Life happens in the in-between spaces, for sure. We are all continuoulsy becoming, evolving, adapting, and yes, struggling too. Life is one long (hopefully long) evolution of self-discovery and evolution.
I love the doorway/threshold theme in your essay. And bare walls. Loved that part. Thank you for writing such a thought-provoking piece.
Welcome! I’m so glad you are here and that you enjoyed this essay. It was the first time I did a recap piece of my monthly pieces that all explored the same theme. I think I really liked the format, and I’m going to do it again!
I hope we all have a long evolution of self-discovery and evolution. 🩵
Alex, I discovered you through a random search in my Recommendations on SS. There are so many quotes from your writing that stand out for me... all powerful, insightful words to ponder. The main thing though is, without naming it, you are speaking about the dance of our masculine and feminine energies-- what they are, how we need both to function as fully human beings. The certainty model of the masculine is important, yes, but not at the rejection of the threshold spaces of the feminine. We're finally learning how to welcome both.
Yes, there is a fluid dance between the masculine and the feminine. I love how that came through for you and how you articulated it, particularly this part: “but not at the rejection of the threshold spaces of the feminine.”
In many ways, I feel like so much of our society has rejected the threshold space that the feminine offers. The place of discovery, exploration, and becoming. And we find ourselves without self-wrought answers. We haven’t been able to do the work, and yet we try to be certain. But how can we be?
Alex, I love your writing, and this essay -- like your other essays -- is so beautifully written and insightful. I think humans tend to cling to certainty, rather than the becoming that is so naturally evolving. People can be afraid of uncertainty. Have you read Jonathan Fields' book Uncertainty? He addresses embracing uncertainty and how important it is to lean into it.
I used to think my identity was finite, not fluid, but I have since learned about the fluidity of identity, and how our narratives are always changing for a plethora of reasons. For me, my identity seemed so static until I was diagnosed with breast cancer. My pre-cancer self evaporated and was replaced with a life so different than what I expected. I got a divorce, went from being in the corporate world to the teaching world, and made a lot more friends becoming quite social. I adopted a baby girl from China and found myself to be a visual artist.
I can't say all my ways of becoming have been positive. I have also become more anxious and suffer from PTSD because of my medical crisis. I'm so lucky to have a sound support team to help me with this. I also have a good number of physical problems, resulting from cancer treatments, but I'm coping the best as I can.
Like so many people, I am a work in progress, to use a cliche. I am comfortable with this state of becoming at this time.
Thank you for a terrific essay. I so appreciate you!
I so appreciate you! Thank you for reading and sharing.
I thought this was such a powerful passage:
"My pre-cancer self evaporated and was replaced with a life so different than what I expected. I got a divorce, went from being in the corporate world to the teaching world, and made a lot more friends becoming quite social. I adopted a baby girl from China and found myself to be a visual artist."
Sure, there are some negative things. After the car accident, I also had some negative things. But it has been full of so many good things too. A lot of becoming. A lot of fluidity. I am so much happier, even with the negatives. And the more I allow myself to embrace them, the more I become.
We are all works in progress. And if we allow ourselves to be, we become even more amazing.
There is so much in this piece to inspire further exploration. Thank you for sharing such a rich cache of thoughts and observations - discoveries and questions. I have been falling behind on my Substack reading lately (life), but clearly need to carve out time to read the rest of the pieces in this series.
You do a beautiful job of combining poetic passages with actionable advice. It's a difficult feat to marry the artistic with the practical this way, and I really appreciate the way you draw us into your experience and then gently help us peel back the layers to get at how what you've shared might help us in our own journey. Really well done.
Raising a cup of (mushroom) coffee to you from my little liminal corner over here. Enjoy those morning reveries to the fullest. xo
Oh, I am so behind too. It’s okay. We will catch up together on each others pieces eventually :)
I’m glad you like that. I really am not into sharing “advice” per say, more so my own wisdoms that I’ve found. And if you identify with it, great, and if you don’t, throw it away! At least you know where it is coming from in my own experience. Haha!
As always Alex I feel your words ……I have thought for a while now that thresholds are where life is truly lived, the holding back and the leaping forward all from the threshold, there’s no reason to rush, to get things ‘right’ or for that matter ‘wrong’, it’s not even a place for sometimes necessary reflection….its a place to be me, this is where the magic happens.
It is where the magic happens! It is where life is truly lived. I think the most profound (for me) realization during this month is that life is all liminal. We don't truly ever reach an ending, for every ending begins something anew. So there is a part of our life where we are always in transition.
Totally…exactly this, when we are not aware or don’t think we are on a threshold but think we are stuck in something we can’t escape, which happens to us all, some much more than others, I feel if we don’t believe there should be a stillness we are missing out on something very special in our lives, including the excitement of something new.
I share blank walls and art of prior years stacked rather than packed away. Large rectangles- I think you said bandaids- a perfect description. Impermanence, change, grief. Alex you write and express so beautifully. I look forward to more.
I feel like the messy in between area is the groove. We forgot to isolate first before the dominant left and right red and blue thinking of duality when we create in general, we’re dominantly thinking and expelling those energies rather than the heart’s purple energy of unity, which even our flag reflects the duality when if put together would make the Purple, cosmic trifecta. I built a cosmic trilogy from visions, lit a stage that’s birthed over five million beats, taught kids the pulse of the universe, and proved that rhythm is memory, medicine, and the realest currency of unity we’ve got.
Alex, this idea of in-between spaces reminds me of the Tibetan Buddhist concept of "bardos." I've described it like this: "The word 'bardo' can also mean any transition or gap that occurs when one situation is complete but the next has yet to begin. That can even refer to one moment changing into the next." Nothing is as solid or as permanent as we think it is. You've written about the liminal spaces so beautifully! I appreciate your courage to explore the in-between, while everyone else is rushing to make their life feel more and more solid.
Alex, though it’s clear from your essays that you are transitioning at the moment as you exist in the threshold of life, your positivity comes through clearly. You say you don’t have answers for us, but what you share in your own story are answers for many of us. What we could not define during certain periods of our lives you have clarified, which is an answer within itself. Allowing us to walk beside you in this journey of discovering who you will become is filled with anticipation for many of us who have come to care about how you feel. I know I am one. Since I first discovered your writings, your wisdom, your giving nature— I have been enthralled. After your accident and all the things you experienced from then to now made me willingly have hope for you as well as admiration. I see you as a man who has been granted a second chance in life which is a rare and miraculous occurrence. You worked so hard to get to where you are today and I am in awe at how much you have accomplished. You have been hurt with your divorce and I fully empathize. Yet, even through your pain you are helping others by sharing your feelings and that hurt, the accompanying uncertainty about the future, that nagging back of the mind questioning of how and why trying to escape is still giving doubts, yet you manage to keep it all in perspective. That is truly a testament to your deep seated character. Hope is what I get from reading your essays. It has been revealed to me from the beginning and I am so grateful I can still feel it here every time you post. Keep going forward my friend there is nothing but up once you have been at the bottom and found that power that hope provides. Thank you for continuing to be you! ❤️🌼
Thank you, my friend. I have been grateful to see your lovely comments throughout this crazy journey. It's been ten months!
I truly believe we all have second, third, fourth, and many chances when we lean back into ourselves. We, ourselves, are our own chance. I haven't yet found my words for that. But, I have found immense hope and power once I leaned back into myself. My personal knowledge. My love for myself and the world. Even though the world is burning, hateful, it is also full of so much good, so much life. That is what I'm finding essential on this journey. That is the perspective I'm finding for myself. Things can suck, yes. But there is always good. And we can feel both of those things.
Thank you for being here, my friend. 🩵
Alex, this has me really thinking about my life and where I have been standing since October 2023. My middle daughter died shortly after I stepped on the threshold of old age as I defined it.
Grief, not for my age--but for loss of my daughter, was overwhelming, but instead of stuffing it down, I decided to embrace it.
This clearly marked a transition from being the mother of three alive children, to two live and one who moved to a different spiritual plane.
Embracing grief does not mean wallowing in it. For me, it means allowing it to be whatever it is in each moment. I am not in the same place I was 18-months ago, but it hovers sometimes further away and sometimes closer.
I am where I need to be right now.
One of the gifts of age is I long since have realized that transition takes up much larger portions of our lives than stasis.
What you write really allows me to evaluate where I am right now.
I am where I need to be...
As Jules points out, "I am where I need to be" is such a powerful sentiment, and I'm really grateful you shared that with us. That statement is such a gift, such a magical mantra, Nancy.
I'm glad this post have you space to evaluate where you are at. And of course, where you are at, is where you need to be. And you have permission to be there, and to be somewhere else the next day. 🩵
"I am where I need to be right now" says so much.
Alex,
As I continue to read your posts each week, I can't help but see poetry in what you write. Have you explored writing poetry a bit more? I remember your poem about mathematics, I think, that you shared in Notes not long ago. You have a natural cadence to your writing that sounds rhythmic when read, and you are gifted at selecting the best word choice to convey what you want to say.
Jeannie,
Thank you, my friend, for this lovely callout. I have been exploring it a bit more! I may share more poetry soon! I owe you a debt of gratitude for the original nudge to lean into it. 🩵
Although I wouldn't say I am gifted at selecting the best word choice. I think I agonize. 😂
I don’t see what you share as agonizing, though I can understand why you might think that way. I am a ruminating type, so sometimes I can belabor a point. What I see in what you publish is not agonizing, but deep thinking. Looking at an issue from multiple angles, letting it sink in. Your writing operates at a slow pace, which I LOVE. My preference for reading, whether in short or long form writing, is a slow pace. It helps me enter the world of the writer and his/her mind. I find that to be the most edifying type of writing to read!
Another beautiful post. I've been reading David Whyte's writing recently - his poems in House of Belonging seem to echo what you write. And a poem by Ronna Bloom seems to speak to this place:
SHE IS CLEARING OUT THE SHELVES
What does she actually need?
A toaster, a teapot, a pen?
She is not the sort of person who picks up a tent and goes off
into the woods alone.
But she is no longer the sort of person
not to. She is being cooked
like a soup, boiled up and getting skimmed.
And she has no idea if the broth is going
to go dark as mahogany or pale as straw.
The shelves are not empty
but in the clearing she can begin to see.
Here, a bowl. Here,
a spoon.
Susie -
Thank you for sharing this particular poem by Ronna. Wow, that resonates with me! This section really strikes me this morning:
She is being cooked
like a soup, boiled up and getting skimmed.
And she has no idea if the broth is going
to go dark as mahogany or pale as straw.
Thank you for sharing something so thought provoking. This really added to this post 🩵
To dwell meaningful within it. I love transitional spaces for this opportunity to know all of myself especially the discomforts.
Wonderful essay
Hang in there
Juicy messy real
Ideal
Thank you, Prajna! I've come to appreciate the transitional, liminal space. There might be some discomfort, but there is also new knowledge! I love it!
I was just writing a piece about childbirth and liminality, specifically focused on the moment before the cord is cut. But I'm also fascinated with the idea of pregnancy as liminality, and *transition* in the actual birth event. I remember transition! Truly a threshold, truly a challenge. And truly one of the best moments of my life.
Laury - I love that idea. I mean, the moment before the cord being cut is definitely a liminal moment of time. But I really like your extension of liminality to the entire experience of pregnancy. That would mesh with my conversations with many of my friends. And that moment of transition is so life-changing and a moment that really has no comparable experience. Wow. I really can't wait to read whatever piece you write.
Hi Alex,
I came to your Substack via a share from my friend Beth Gainer. I'm so glad I clicked and ended up reading your entire piece. It's quite profound and filled with valuable insights. Life happens in the in-between spaces, for sure. We are all continuoulsy becoming, evolving, adapting, and yes, struggling too. Life is one long (hopefully long) evolution of self-discovery and evolution.
I love the doorway/threshold theme in your essay. And bare walls. Loved that part. Thank you for writing such a thought-provoking piece.
Hi Nancy!
Welcome! I’m so glad you are here and that you enjoyed this essay. It was the first time I did a recap piece of my monthly pieces that all explored the same theme. I think I really liked the format, and I’m going to do it again!
I hope we all have a long evolution of self-discovery and evolution. 🩵
Alex, I discovered you through a random search in my Recommendations on SS. There are so many quotes from your writing that stand out for me... all powerful, insightful words to ponder. The main thing though is, without naming it, you are speaking about the dance of our masculine and feminine energies-- what they are, how we need both to function as fully human beings. The certainty model of the masculine is important, yes, but not at the rejection of the threshold spaces of the feminine. We're finally learning how to welcome both.
Hi Linda! Welcome to my little space 🩵
Yes, there is a fluid dance between the masculine and the feminine. I love how that came through for you and how you articulated it, particularly this part: “but not at the rejection of the threshold spaces of the feminine.”
In many ways, I feel like so much of our society has rejected the threshold space that the feminine offers. The place of discovery, exploration, and becoming. And we find ourselves without self-wrought answers. We haven’t been able to do the work, and yet we try to be certain. But how can we be?
Alex, I love your writing, and this essay -- like your other essays -- is so beautifully written and insightful. I think humans tend to cling to certainty, rather than the becoming that is so naturally evolving. People can be afraid of uncertainty. Have you read Jonathan Fields' book Uncertainty? He addresses embracing uncertainty and how important it is to lean into it.
I used to think my identity was finite, not fluid, but I have since learned about the fluidity of identity, and how our narratives are always changing for a plethora of reasons. For me, my identity seemed so static until I was diagnosed with breast cancer. My pre-cancer self evaporated and was replaced with a life so different than what I expected. I got a divorce, went from being in the corporate world to the teaching world, and made a lot more friends becoming quite social. I adopted a baby girl from China and found myself to be a visual artist.
I can't say all my ways of becoming have been positive. I have also become more anxious and suffer from PTSD because of my medical crisis. I'm so lucky to have a sound support team to help me with this. I also have a good number of physical problems, resulting from cancer treatments, but I'm coping the best as I can.
Like so many people, I am a work in progress, to use a cliche. I am comfortable with this state of becoming at this time.
Thank you for a terrific essay. I so appreciate you!
I so appreciate you! Thank you for reading and sharing.
I thought this was such a powerful passage:
"My pre-cancer self evaporated and was replaced with a life so different than what I expected. I got a divorce, went from being in the corporate world to the teaching world, and made a lot more friends becoming quite social. I adopted a baby girl from China and found myself to be a visual artist."
Sure, there are some negative things. After the car accident, I also had some negative things. But it has been full of so many good things too. A lot of becoming. A lot of fluidity. I am so much happier, even with the negatives. And the more I allow myself to embrace them, the more I become.
We are all works in progress. And if we allow ourselves to be, we become even more amazing.
Thank you for being here 🩵
-Alex
There is so much in this piece to inspire further exploration. Thank you for sharing such a rich cache of thoughts and observations - discoveries and questions. I have been falling behind on my Substack reading lately (life), but clearly need to carve out time to read the rest of the pieces in this series.
You do a beautiful job of combining poetic passages with actionable advice. It's a difficult feat to marry the artistic with the practical this way, and I really appreciate the way you draw us into your experience and then gently help us peel back the layers to get at how what you've shared might help us in our own journey. Really well done.
Raising a cup of (mushroom) coffee to you from my little liminal corner over here. Enjoy those morning reveries to the fullest. xo
Oh, I am so behind too. It’s okay. We will catch up together on each others pieces eventually :)
I’m glad you like that. I really am not into sharing “advice” per say, more so my own wisdoms that I’ve found. And if you identify with it, great, and if you don’t, throw it away! At least you know where it is coming from in my own experience. Haha!
Thank you for reading and for sharing, my friend.
As always Alex I feel your words ……I have thought for a while now that thresholds are where life is truly lived, the holding back and the leaping forward all from the threshold, there’s no reason to rush, to get things ‘right’ or for that matter ‘wrong’, it’s not even a place for sometimes necessary reflection….its a place to be me, this is where the magic happens.
It is where the magic happens! It is where life is truly lived. I think the most profound (for me) realization during this month is that life is all liminal. We don't truly ever reach an ending, for every ending begins something anew. So there is a part of our life where we are always in transition.
Totally…exactly this, when we are not aware or don’t think we are on a threshold but think we are stuck in something we can’t escape, which happens to us all, some much more than others, I feel if we don’t believe there should be a stillness we are missing out on something very special in our lives, including the excitement of something new.
I share blank walls and art of prior years stacked rather than packed away. Large rectangles- I think you said bandaids- a perfect description. Impermanence, change, grief. Alex you write and express so beautifully. I look forward to more.
Thank you, Michele, that really means a lot to me. 🩵
A wonderful essay, thankyou Alex. So much richness to ponder and reflect on.
Thank you, Jules! I appreciate you reading, pondering, reflecting, and sharing 🩵
“Dwelling in doorways’,
living liminality.
Messy middle space.
...
Threshold’s in-between,
questions, freeing point of view.
Being-becoming sill?
I feel like the messy in between area is the groove. We forgot to isolate first before the dominant left and right red and blue thinking of duality when we create in general, we’re dominantly thinking and expelling those energies rather than the heart’s purple energy of unity, which even our flag reflects the duality when if put together would make the Purple, cosmic trifecta. I built a cosmic trilogy from visions, lit a stage that’s birthed over five million beats, taught kids the pulse of the universe, and proved that rhythm is memory, medicine, and the realest currency of unity we’ve got.
Alex, this idea of in-between spaces reminds me of the Tibetan Buddhist concept of "bardos." I've described it like this: "The word 'bardo' can also mean any transition or gap that occurs when one situation is complete but the next has yet to begin. That can even refer to one moment changing into the next." Nothing is as solid or as permanent as we think it is. You've written about the liminal spaces so beautifully! I appreciate your courage to explore the in-between, while everyone else is rushing to make their life feel more and more solid.