Betwixt & Between: Creativity in a Liminal Time

liminal - adj. [technical]
1. of or relating to an initial or transitional stage of a process
2. occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a threshhold.
origin: late 19th century; from Latin limen, limin 'threshhold'

For the past few weeks, the word "liminal" has been in my mind. It's a curious word most often used in sociology, anthropology and psychology, and it is almost oenomatopoetic (sounding like its meaning). Say "liminal" out loud and the word feels drifty, as if it's a kind of floating place, there in transition, on the threshhold to... what?

I think I first heard the word from Molly, home on break from Reed College more than 15 years ago. Her daddy was talking about how he was struggling with the transition from being a professor of Economics, his time structured--constrained, really--by classes and grad students and committees, to a self-employed consultant who had to find his own work and schedule every day.

Molly said something like, "You're in a liminal state, Dad." He who always loved learning new words or new anything asked what 'liminal' meant. She explained.

I listened to their discussion as I prepared dinner for the three of us, and rolled the word around in my mouth like a marble, intrigued by the way the consonants and vowels slid out like quiet water.

Richard, Molly, and Isis, our late, great, Great Dane,
at Christmas break in 2003

As a freelance writer, I knew the feeling of it, that curious pause, the hesitation at being betwixt and between that came when I finished a writing project, whether one that had required months and months of my attention like a book, or just the days and weeks devoted to reserching and writing a feature article or commentary.

As soon as a manuscript leaves my desk, I enter that liminal time--even though I didn't know the word until Molly mentioned it--that shift and confusion in reorientating my life and world to whatever the next project is. There is always that moment, standing on the threshhold or just before it, when I feel a queer combination of bereft and adrift, and also the quickening of excitement (and no small amount of terror) at taking off into the unknown.

Liminal comes to mind now because it's where I am. I finished what I hope is the final major rewrite of Bless the Birds almost three weeks ago—the day before what what be Richard's 66th birthday—and sent it off to my agent (who is reading it right now).

I have some smaller projects to work on, but they're not occupying the same intense and exhilarating creative space the memoir did. They're good work but not the deep work of heart and spirit that I've come to put into my books.

I can't quite see what's ahead, though I have a vague outline, and I'm drifting a bit. When I'm not engaged in those immediate deadlines, I read and let my mind wander, which is sometimes comfortable but often not.

I am much more used to a focus and a schedule, but honestly, creativity does not come from being comfortable. This betwixt and between state is far more open to creativity than when I have my tidy self organized and pointed at a deadline.

I need this unmoored, edgy, awkward time to push my boundaries, to throw open the doors in my mind, to think of ten impossible things before breakfast, to be surprised and amazed and unsettled, to open myself to what I didn't know I didn't know, the paths that will take me far beyond the familiar and comfortable and safe.

It helps to have useful work to occupy the front of my mind right now, so my subconscious can wander and integrate things that didn't necessarily seem to be related, find pattern in chaos and meaning in random thoughts and memories and ideas. So that I can weather the uneasiness of knowing that possibilities are so wide open that it's bewildering and somewhat overwhelming, that I have no set goal to aim at or even more than the vaugest idea of a general direction I might want to take.

Come November, thanks to the Women's International Study Center and the residency they awarded me at Acequia Madre House in Santa Fe, I'll have a whole glorious month to explore whatever has presented itself in this liminal time. A month to wander paths--both literal and metaphorical--without caring where they go, just to see and feel whatever is there.

Liminal time, that state when anything and everything is possible, when we have yet to choose the path or even know which door we will go through. It's scary, discomfiting, annoying, and increatibly [oops, that was supposed to be "incredibly," but I kind of like "increatibly" too!] liberating; if we can stay with it, that awkward and difficult process may yield our most creative inspirations, like a bud, cells dividing seemingly at random until the whole assemblage forms a glorious bloom.