Liminal
August 3rd, 2006
Liminality might best be described as the state of limbo found in one’s own identity due to social transition or a “rite of passage” where one can neither be associated with who one had previously been nor can one be associated with the social recognition that he/she has earned but has yet to receive. The tasks/roles of the past are completed and the tasks/roles of the future are not yet accessible… the individual is found to be in a kind of unbound flux both within one’s self and within the larger realm of society.
Why did I begin this blog with a definition of some philosophical term? I thought it fitting since the last conversation I had with a certain young woman, whom is of great importance to me, consisted of the statement “I feel so liminal”. She had been referring to the events of the past week that seemed more like a dream than anything else. They were the type of events that involve the leads of some epic romantic film, not to mere mortals such as she and myself. Love songs sing about such things, which we did listened to on several occasions and found them quite fitting to our seemingly liminal existence.
She had not only been referring to the events of the week prior, but most likely the whole of the summer up to that point. See, she had just graduated from college and was transitioning into a grad/doctorial program at a university on the west coast. I do believe that our short lived relationship (with the hope of something more) may have been the pinnacle of her liminal experience. She had asked me a time or two “Don’t you feel liminal?” to which I mostly nodded and avoided answering. For me, I felt like my stage of transition was coming to an end and while she and I hung out and discussed the deep questions of life, postmodernism, and the perspective of a certain philosopher named Emmanuel Levinas, I was feeling more and more at home; at home in my new surroundings, at home in my renewed path, and at home in my new friend. As I joined her at the airport in Tel Aviv where we enjoyed a meal, a good hand holding and each other’s presence, I couldn’t help but feel as part of my new home was to some degree breaking up, for even from the beginning of the Hebrew Ulpan class she was my “Zoog”, my partner, and helped me fill the times in-between sleeping and class with laughter and chocolate croissant eating.
To say that I am going to miss her would be an understatement for so much of my understanding of my new home includes her. Do I feel Liminal? That is a good question. Maybe I do, maybe even more then before. The problem is if this is Liminal, then what am I transitioning to? That being said, I leave this blog with a seemingly misplaced and unrelated poem.
This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
– William Carlos Williams
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Interesting….
I like it. makes me feel liminal just reading this blog.
Here is my poem.
I like plums
that I
have eaten
and which
I would not
have shared
For my plums
are not cold
yet sour
but tasty
Oh how I
have learned
to eat…
sour,
tasty,
plums.
Do you have any pictures!?!?!