Thank you, my friend, this means a lot to me. This was a hard post, a happy post, a cathartic post, a deep post, a light post, a fun post, and because I’m moving, a stressful post 😂
Thank you for reading, my friend. I’m so grateful for you.
Thank you, Kateri. Your reflection is nourishing 🩵
I love that your place is an entranceway. That sounds like a wonderful place to sit with tea and stare off. I would also love to do that, and watch the comings and goings of people as they go along their day!
I slowed way down when you wrote about finding your ex's sock. I thought about how you started your essay--at a threshold, in a doorway--and what it means to be in these in-between places in our lives, both literally and existentially. I mean, I thought about your move and the symbolism of that for you. I didn't realize before you wrote this essay that this had been the place where you and your ex-husband lived and shared a life, that it was also supposed to be a temporary place, and that in moving there was a level of grief that surfaced in an unexpected way.
I read, too, your description of being in that liminal space between past and future, which is connected only by the present. I understood that loss and love co-mingle, that packing up and moving out allowed you to reflect on where you'd been and what you were leaving behind, especially memories, but also in what you are now building and in who you are becoming.
I am middle-aged, so much of this essay resonated on that level to me. I am neither young nor old. I understand youth in a way that only time and experience can offer, but I am not yet in my "golden years," where aging is quite evident and my physical or cognitive decline restricts me from being as mobile as I'd like to be or as coherent and mentally sharp.
I see this in my parents and in their generation. I hear the grief in how they describe what it's like to be the last ones left in their families, because their parents and their older siblings (if applicable) are gone now, and they are now attending funerals of their peers and former colleagues and friends. It really puts into perspective the reality of mortality and what it means to be fully alive. Sometimes I hear them saying "I'm too old" or "It's too late for me now," but I don't really believe that. I believe that, no matter how young or old, anyone can start the life they want today.
There's so much more to say, but I'll end with this: thank you, as always, for sharing such powerful insights with the most tender-loving care.
I echo Kelly; I always SO appreciate your thoughtful reflections and comments.
I think your reflection on middle-age is so interesting and spot-on. As I also begin to join the middle-age club, I can relate to looking at those in their much more youthful years and see my younger self in them. I can also see the trajectory of where I am headed. I can feel the discomfort, in a way, with being in the middle of that!
I also don't believe that it is "too late" - we can also start something. I think part of our problem is we become so obsessed with endings. And as we near our natural ending, we become more and more obsessed with it.
I think that is part of what I meant by this:
"I'm starting to think that maybe all of life is liminal. That "closure" and "certainty" are comforting illusions we create to feel better about the fundamental ambiguity of being alive."
It becomes uncomfortable to think of life as persisting, and so we focus on the ending.
Anyways, those are some thoughts about your thoughts. Thank you for reading and reflecting, and also sharing your empathy with me. I appreciate feeling so seen and valued. 🩵
Wow, that is such a powerful insight, Alex—that maybe the difficult part of aging is that we are focused on the ending of life. WOW. WOW. I need to ponder that more.
I always enjoy learning from you, too. Happy to be here and support you and your incredibly gifted self. :)
This makes so much sense to me Alex, I have been wondering of late why I am in so much of a hurry to get to the next part…..I have so been missing the here and now…… I understand I have to stop ignoring/running from the lessons I have not yet learned.
Sometimes, I feel like when I don't spend enough time in the present, the universe engineers experiences for me to keep reliving things over and over until I learn my lesson to stay in the present. Once I learned to live life in the present, that did change for me!
I’m an expert on the re living, if only in my head. I will give it my best shot ….thank you for sharing, it makes so much sense to me now, maybe now I am ready.
This is a beautiful piece. Liminality is a concept that’s been pinging at me lately—I even have some notes for my own post. I love the idea of relishing it as the Japanese do rather than trying to hurry through as we often do. Plus, we know healing and thriving comes from allowing ample time, space, and attention. 🩵
Thank you, Wendy! Slowing down and enjoying the process has fundamentally altered my relationship with liminality, and I much prefer this version of the process. There is a wholeness and a completeness that comes with it. And of course it would! We know, as you point out, that time, space, and attention matter - so why would we want to rush through the very process that allows us this?
I would love to read what you put together on liminality 🩵
I said the same thing, Wendy, this encourages me to write more about something I've been thinking about. You know it's an important piece of writing when it inspires multiple writers to write more about it!
Oh, I'm glad it encourages you to do so! I'd love to see what you put together on this. If I can serve as a small source of inspiration, I'd be honored!
What a fun little read about a missing sock, Marisol. Thank you for sharing. I have many socks that are missing their friends - I've never discovered how they run off from each other!
I always appreciate your poetic reflections. They are so delightful and bring me so much joy! 🩵
After many years, and many transitions, I've come to value the pause between. That moment of standing in the doorway between what used to be and what will come. Sometimes I linger there for a long time, watching and waiting for the new chapter to reveal itself. Other times, the new beckons before I feel ready and it takes courage to move toward it. Change is never easy, but I've found the view from the doorway can be magical because it is filled with the unknown, and the unknown is full of possibilities.
You are such a good writer. I am captivated by these words. I love the idea of thresholds being places in their own right. And I particularly loved this: "I'm starting to think that maybe all of life is liminal. That "closure" and "certainty" are comforting illusions we create to feel better about the fundamental ambiguity of being alive." I think you're right. So much of what we do as humans is to try and make order out of what we perceive as chaos. But what if chaos is okay? What if we just were with it, instead of trying to sort it, run away from it, determine it as 'bad'? My guess is we'd find a liminal beauty in that too. Thanks so much for helping me pause and wonder, yet again.
Oh, thank you, Jane! I appreciate your words. Your comment has sparked some thinking in me. I wonder if chaos has been judged "bad" because it is uncontrollable. And we humans sure do like to control everything! But if we can surrender to the idea that we cannot control most things, we can influence some, and everything else happens as it may, we can experience so much more happiness.
Yes. You’re spot on. My holiday plans have just gone awry and until I read this I was feeling rubbish! But that’s cos I was thinking I knew what was going to happen. If I can let go of that (I can) then whatever happens is ok. Meaning we can go home tomorrow and it’s fine, instead of having a few days away in the campervan (which has broken down!)
Chaos is only chaos if we want it to be different. And it’s only bad if we allocate that judgement to it. I must remember my own words!!!
I wish I could add a video here for you. This post makes me think about how I learned to do handstands in a door frame. (that's the video I have) The cool thing about a door-frame handstand is that it is 100% supportive. I've taught older ladies in their 60s and 70s to go upside with the support of the door frame. And your writing here reminds me that it is the support of the liminal in-between space that allows us to "go upside down" and envision things differently than they were before so that you can move forward to another space with a new perspective and element of growth.
Yes! Thank you for sending me that video. I love the idea that we can go upside down within this threshold of support and see from a different perspective. It is definitely part of what I'm trying to describe here in this piece, but it is so much easier to visualize! I wish you could post video comments! How cool would that be?
As I read this Alex, my mind is saying I’m reading the first chapter of your new book. For me, it is filled with an awesome idea about finding our own individual presence in time and yet like any great book I’m mesmerized by your journey and curious to know where this revelation you had will be taking you. I suppose being generations apart experiences of life will cross one another’s and I find myself reliving the very emotion you have after a divorce. The difference I surmised was that the love you shared with your spouse still has a grip upon your heart, while my love was never there from beginning to end. Different reasons aside from love exist for why some people marry, much easier for those of us who had no bond of love that bound us as one. I did, however experience the kind of love you must have had with your spouse in a non-marital relationship so I recognized your deep hurt. The more you reveal yourself when you write the better it becomes for those of us who read them. Seeing in you a life of extraordinary depth in emotion, intellect, wisdom and hope. Your writing about your thoughts and feelings and observations of what is in front of you at any given moment, draws my own individuality to the surface. I want to know where you are, what you choose as a “new beginning” and what happens as you are led to the place you are meant to be. You had such a unique way of expressing your threshold in life through this chapter you wrote that my urge to follow wherever it is you go next is hard to resist. I hope you keep writing as you have been. The stories you tell, the experiences, the connections, and each adventure or moment on your journey reads as a book you cannot put down. Only it isn’t simply a novel but a memoir of an amazing human being. Thank you Alex you never cease to reach my soul in one way or another.
Oh, Kathy, your words touch my heart. Thank you. What I appreciate is that can, in one way or another, relate to these moments of in-betweeness, where we haven't quite ended nor begun anew. It is such a human experience, and likely where we are all situated, in one way or another in one aspect of our life. I truly do, after writing this aspect, feel like life is all liminal to some degree. We might just not recognize it.
I appreciate everything you shared - perhaps this is the beginning, end, or the middle of my book. I guess we shall see?
Beautiful, Alex. This is a concept I’ve been thinking about often as I stand in my own transition ‘doorway’. I came to writing via Beth Kempton’s winter writing sanctuary, where the theme of transition and thresholds was explored as we wrote over the threshold of the New Year. It is only in these recent months that I’ve learned the perfect now-ness of not rushing. I’ve needed time to adjust, to let go of all I was before, and to breathe. Eventually, there will be a new career, when the universe is ready. This moment, right here and now, is all I have and it is the most precious moment there ever will be.
Thank you for making me think as deeply as your words always do. 🩵
Thank you for sharing, Louise. This moment is all we have. When we take our time with it, I believe it’s such a beautiful gift! It carries valuable lessons. I truly believe you will embark on a new career—it's ready for you to discover right now! The best part is, you already know what it is, and each day you are slowly uncovering the layers of it.
You’re absolutely right, look how far we’ve come, we may be still standing in our own doorways, but we are changed by the chrysalis of it. Caterpillar entering, butterfly when we step out.
Of all the fabulous lines in this post, this is the one that for some reason got me the most: "I wonder when we stopped seeing doorways as magical and started seeing them as just gaps to hurry through."
Thank you for all of it.
I have a phrase that keeps repeating in my head: the space between belongings. Your writing makes me want to write more about it myself. 🙏
I'm so glad my writing can inspire you to write more about it!
As I was writing, my mind went back to when I was a kid and my imagination would go wild, and doorways would be portals to great big worlds of wonder and mystery. Where I would slay dragons and do all those hero things.
Do you know what's funny? My friends and I would spend so much time, AS KIDS, on the story development. Getting to the dragon. Yes there would be lots of fights along the way. Lot's of goblins to kill, elves to befriend, etc, but we never rushed through the journey. That was the best part. Because once the ending was done, the journey was over.
Now, we rush to the ending. But then... It's over. And this piece made me really reflect on why. I still don't have an answer to that.
Your piece "Standing in Doorways" beautifully captures the essence of transitional spaces, both physically and emotionally. Your introspective narrative about existing between past and future resonates deeply, highlighting the significance of these liminal moments. The metaphor of the doorway as a room itself is particularly poignant, inviting readers to embrace the transformative power of being 'in-between.
This is a beautiful way of thinking. Mindfulness is always enriching. I sometimes get in a rush, then I am reminded of what I am missing when I fail to be present, to be patient, to recognize those transitions as opportunities. The end of relationships are a death we must grieve. Maybe not push to get through, but feel our feelings and then move forward in acceptance, and curiosity for what comes next. Moving house is up there in the top 5 most stressful things to go through. I hope your new home is filled with joy and light. Thank you for this. Love, Virg
So much richness in this post—as always, I walk away better for having read your words. This is one I’ll return to again. 🧡
Thank you, my friend, this means a lot to me. This was a hard post, a happy post, a cathartic post, a deep post, a light post, a fun post, and because I’m moving, a stressful post 😂
Thank you for reading, my friend. I’m so grateful for you.
I feel the same way, Erin.
“Our culture really hates the in-between, doesn't it?”
That has been my experience.
I have really resonated with the Japanese aesthetics of in-betweenness, but my soul is anchored in the Celtic sense of the liminal.
I loved this, Alex. I think about this a lot. Your perspective is nourishing.
You know my place? It’s an entranceway stoop with two stairs. My favourite place to sit with tea and stare off into wonder. :)
Thank you, Kateri. Your reflection is nourishing 🩵
I love that your place is an entranceway. That sounds like a wonderful place to sit with tea and stare off. I would also love to do that, and watch the comings and goings of people as they go along their day!
Alex,
I slowed way down when you wrote about finding your ex's sock. I thought about how you started your essay--at a threshold, in a doorway--and what it means to be in these in-between places in our lives, both literally and existentially. I mean, I thought about your move and the symbolism of that for you. I didn't realize before you wrote this essay that this had been the place where you and your ex-husband lived and shared a life, that it was also supposed to be a temporary place, and that in moving there was a level of grief that surfaced in an unexpected way.
I read, too, your description of being in that liminal space between past and future, which is connected only by the present. I understood that loss and love co-mingle, that packing up and moving out allowed you to reflect on where you'd been and what you were leaving behind, especially memories, but also in what you are now building and in who you are becoming.
I am middle-aged, so much of this essay resonated on that level to me. I am neither young nor old. I understand youth in a way that only time and experience can offer, but I am not yet in my "golden years," where aging is quite evident and my physical or cognitive decline restricts me from being as mobile as I'd like to be or as coherent and mentally sharp.
I see this in my parents and in their generation. I hear the grief in how they describe what it's like to be the last ones left in their families, because their parents and their older siblings (if applicable) are gone now, and they are now attending funerals of their peers and former colleagues and friends. It really puts into perspective the reality of mortality and what it means to be fully alive. Sometimes I hear them saying "I'm too old" or "It's too late for me now," but I don't really believe that. I believe that, no matter how young or old, anyone can start the life they want today.
There's so much more to say, but I'll end with this: thank you, as always, for sharing such powerful insights with the most tender-loving care.
I echo Kelly; I always SO appreciate your thoughtful reflections and comments.
I think your reflection on middle-age is so interesting and spot-on. As I also begin to join the middle-age club, I can relate to looking at those in their much more youthful years and see my younger self in them. I can also see the trajectory of where I am headed. I can feel the discomfort, in a way, with being in the middle of that!
I also don't believe that it is "too late" - we can also start something. I think part of our problem is we become so obsessed with endings. And as we near our natural ending, we become more and more obsessed with it.
I think that is part of what I meant by this:
"I'm starting to think that maybe all of life is liminal. That "closure" and "certainty" are comforting illusions we create to feel better about the fundamental ambiguity of being alive."
It becomes uncomfortable to think of life as persisting, and so we focus on the ending.
Anyways, those are some thoughts about your thoughts. Thank you for reading and reflecting, and also sharing your empathy with me. I appreciate feeling so seen and valued. 🩵
Wow, that is such a powerful insight, Alex—that maybe the difficult part of aging is that we are focused on the ending of life. WOW. WOW. I need to ponder that more.
I always enjoy learning from you, too. Happy to be here and support you and your incredibly gifted self. :)
Jeannie, I love the way you deeply read and respond to other people's work. 🙏
I do too. I'm so grateful to know Jeannie 🩵
Thank you, Kelly. I see and feel and think about everything deeply, since I'm a highly sensitive person. ❤️
You are, and that is so wonderful. 🩵
Thank you, Alex. :)
That makes being out here and doing the work in public all the more brave. 🙏
Well, I am glad you think so, Kelly. Thank you for saying that.
This makes so much sense to me Alex, I have been wondering of late why I am in so much of a hurry to get to the next part…..I have so been missing the here and now…… I understand I have to stop ignoring/running from the lessons I have not yet learned.
Sometimes, I feel like when I don't spend enough time in the present, the universe engineers experiences for me to keep reliving things over and over until I learn my lesson to stay in the present. Once I learned to live life in the present, that did change for me!
I’m an expert on the re living, if only in my head. I will give it my best shot ….thank you for sharing, it makes so much sense to me now, maybe now I am ready.
This is a beautiful piece. Liminality is a concept that’s been pinging at me lately—I even have some notes for my own post. I love the idea of relishing it as the Japanese do rather than trying to hurry through as we often do. Plus, we know healing and thriving comes from allowing ample time, space, and attention. 🩵
Thank you, Wendy! Slowing down and enjoying the process has fundamentally altered my relationship with liminality, and I much prefer this version of the process. There is a wholeness and a completeness that comes with it. And of course it would! We know, as you point out, that time, space, and attention matter - so why would we want to rush through the very process that allows us this?
I would love to read what you put together on liminality 🩵
You are welcome, Alexander! Glad to hear it. Of course, it’s not necessarily easy but you’re richer for it.
I’ll let you know if/when I publish a piece on liminality. 🩵
I said the same thing, Wendy, this encourages me to write more about something I've been thinking about. You know it's an important piece of writing when it inspires multiple writers to write more about it!
Oh, I'm glad it encourages you to do so! I'd love to see what you put together on this. If I can serve as a small source of inspiration, I'd be honored!
I’ve got it on the schedule for a month from now. 🙏 Will be sure to tag you in it!
It must be hovering in the zeitgeist!
The liminal space
in-between is luminous.
What if we danced there?
...
Linger longer here,
threshold home holds the heart near.
And for a smile, dear:
https://www.pausando.net/entries/sock
What a fun little read about a missing sock, Marisol. Thank you for sharing. I have many socks that are missing their friends - I've never discovered how they run off from each other!
I always appreciate your poetic reflections. They are so delightful and bring me so much joy! 🩵
It's so easy to rush through the 'in between.' This post has inspired me to move slower. I needed this today. Thank you. 💗
I am SO glad, Nicky. It’s so fun when things find us at the right time. Thank you for being here 🩵
After many years, and many transitions, I've come to value the pause between. That moment of standing in the doorway between what used to be and what will come. Sometimes I linger there for a long time, watching and waiting for the new chapter to reveal itself. Other times, the new beckons before I feel ready and it takes courage to move toward it. Change is never easy, but I've found the view from the doorway can be magical because it is filled with the unknown, and the unknown is full of possibilities.
Oh I love the end of your comment 🩵 the unknown is FULL of possibility. It is MAGICAL.
You are such a good writer. I am captivated by these words. I love the idea of thresholds being places in their own right. And I particularly loved this: "I'm starting to think that maybe all of life is liminal. That "closure" and "certainty" are comforting illusions we create to feel better about the fundamental ambiguity of being alive." I think you're right. So much of what we do as humans is to try and make order out of what we perceive as chaos. But what if chaos is okay? What if we just were with it, instead of trying to sort it, run away from it, determine it as 'bad'? My guess is we'd find a liminal beauty in that too. Thanks so much for helping me pause and wonder, yet again.
Oh, thank you, Jane! I appreciate your words. Your comment has sparked some thinking in me. I wonder if chaos has been judged "bad" because it is uncontrollable. And we humans sure do like to control everything! But if we can surrender to the idea that we cannot control most things, we can influence some, and everything else happens as it may, we can experience so much more happiness.
Yes. You’re spot on. My holiday plans have just gone awry and until I read this I was feeling rubbish! But that’s cos I was thinking I knew what was going to happen. If I can let go of that (I can) then whatever happens is ok. Meaning we can go home tomorrow and it’s fine, instead of having a few days away in the campervan (which has broken down!)
Chaos is only chaos if we want it to be different. And it’s only bad if we allocate that judgement to it. I must remember my own words!!!
I wish I could add a video here for you. This post makes me think about how I learned to do handstands in a door frame. (that's the video I have) The cool thing about a door-frame handstand is that it is 100% supportive. I've taught older ladies in their 60s and 70s to go upside with the support of the door frame. And your writing here reminds me that it is the support of the liminal in-between space that allows us to "go upside down" and envision things differently than they were before so that you can move forward to another space with a new perspective and element of growth.
Yes! Thank you for sending me that video. I love the idea that we can go upside down within this threshold of support and see from a different perspective. It is definitely part of what I'm trying to describe here in this piece, but it is so much easier to visualize! I wish you could post video comments! How cool would that be?
someday Substack may allow video comments. and when they do, I will video myself gushing my gratitude for you and your writing.
As I read this Alex, my mind is saying I’m reading the first chapter of your new book. For me, it is filled with an awesome idea about finding our own individual presence in time and yet like any great book I’m mesmerized by your journey and curious to know where this revelation you had will be taking you. I suppose being generations apart experiences of life will cross one another’s and I find myself reliving the very emotion you have after a divorce. The difference I surmised was that the love you shared with your spouse still has a grip upon your heart, while my love was never there from beginning to end. Different reasons aside from love exist for why some people marry, much easier for those of us who had no bond of love that bound us as one. I did, however experience the kind of love you must have had with your spouse in a non-marital relationship so I recognized your deep hurt. The more you reveal yourself when you write the better it becomes for those of us who read them. Seeing in you a life of extraordinary depth in emotion, intellect, wisdom and hope. Your writing about your thoughts and feelings and observations of what is in front of you at any given moment, draws my own individuality to the surface. I want to know where you are, what you choose as a “new beginning” and what happens as you are led to the place you are meant to be. You had such a unique way of expressing your threshold in life through this chapter you wrote that my urge to follow wherever it is you go next is hard to resist. I hope you keep writing as you have been. The stories you tell, the experiences, the connections, and each adventure or moment on your journey reads as a book you cannot put down. Only it isn’t simply a novel but a memoir of an amazing human being. Thank you Alex you never cease to reach my soul in one way or another.
Oh, Kathy, your words touch my heart. Thank you. What I appreciate is that can, in one way or another, relate to these moments of in-betweeness, where we haven't quite ended nor begun anew. It is such a human experience, and likely where we are all situated, in one way or another in one aspect of our life. I truly do, after writing this aspect, feel like life is all liminal to some degree. We might just not recognize it.
I appreciate everything you shared - perhaps this is the beginning, end, or the middle of my book. I guess we shall see?
Oh I hope so! I’ll buy the first edition!
Beautiful, Alex. This is a concept I’ve been thinking about often as I stand in my own transition ‘doorway’. I came to writing via Beth Kempton’s winter writing sanctuary, where the theme of transition and thresholds was explored as we wrote over the threshold of the New Year. It is only in these recent months that I’ve learned the perfect now-ness of not rushing. I’ve needed time to adjust, to let go of all I was before, and to breathe. Eventually, there will be a new career, when the universe is ready. This moment, right here and now, is all I have and it is the most precious moment there ever will be.
Thank you for making me think as deeply as your words always do. 🩵
Thank you for sharing, Louise. This moment is all we have. When we take our time with it, I believe it’s such a beautiful gift! It carries valuable lessons. I truly believe you will embark on a new career—it's ready for you to discover right now! The best part is, you already know what it is, and each day you are slowly uncovering the layers of it.
You’re absolutely right, look how far we’ve come, we may be still standing in our own doorways, but we are changed by the chrysalis of it. Caterpillar entering, butterfly when we step out.
Of all the fabulous lines in this post, this is the one that for some reason got me the most: "I wonder when we stopped seeing doorways as magical and started seeing them as just gaps to hurry through."
Thank you for all of it.
I have a phrase that keeps repeating in my head: the space between belongings. Your writing makes me want to write more about it myself. 🙏
I'm so glad my writing can inspire you to write more about it!
As I was writing, my mind went back to when I was a kid and my imagination would go wild, and doorways would be portals to great big worlds of wonder and mystery. Where I would slay dragons and do all those hero things.
Do you know what's funny? My friends and I would spend so much time, AS KIDS, on the story development. Getting to the dragon. Yes there would be lots of fights along the way. Lot's of goblins to kill, elves to befriend, etc, but we never rushed through the journey. That was the best part. Because once the ending was done, the journey was over.
Now, we rush to the ending. But then... It's over. And this piece made me really reflect on why. I still don't have an answer to that.
Beautiful observation, Alex. Why would you want the game to end? That’s when your friends would go home!
This is profound! I needed this as I too stand in the in-between. You are an amazing writer and the world needs your words!
Your piece "Standing in Doorways" beautifully captures the essence of transitional spaces, both physically and emotionally. Your introspective narrative about existing between past and future resonates deeply, highlighting the significance of these liminal moments. The metaphor of the doorway as a room itself is particularly poignant, inviting readers to embrace the transformative power of being 'in-between.
This is a beautiful way of thinking. Mindfulness is always enriching. I sometimes get in a rush, then I am reminded of what I am missing when I fail to be present, to be patient, to recognize those transitions as opportunities. The end of relationships are a death we must grieve. Maybe not push to get through, but feel our feelings and then move forward in acceptance, and curiosity for what comes next. Moving house is up there in the top 5 most stressful things to go through. I hope your new home is filled with joy and light. Thank you for this. Love, Virg