I had planned to take a longer break from this space, but I woke up this morning and could not stop thinking about liminality. And so here I am, with the latest words.
Liminal (adjective):
1. Occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold
2. Relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.
I stared at my colouring book, open, unable to make even the slightest stroke. I had found that joy met me here, within the fine strokes of the felt pen meandering its way across the book, colours changing in mid-air. Pens exchanged and rummaging through my little bag of colours. Today, however, I was stuck. Joy seemed to have parted ways with me for the day. I wondered where to go next. What flower to colour? What colour to even pick up?
Where do you go from here when the hand that has become so used to rummaging and picking and moving refuses to move? What do you do with the hand that has only known motion as its core language, but never stillness? Never wonder and awe and a stop. I could not flip back the page and go to the already coloured flowers I had worked on and looking forward seemed all too hazy in itself. My pen had refused to move, refused to motion itself into the fine edges of this book.
The flowers, in the book, called me, begged me to just pick a colour and still I stared blankly at the page. Some seemed too hard to even look at. Others seemed too crammed up in a tiny space. While others were just not speaking to me then. All jaggedly drawn in some sort of orderliness, but which at a closer look actually seemed quite orderly.
Ugh!
I dropped my pen and stared outside. Clear blue skies and the warm sun on my skin. I found myself remembering a hike that my friends and I had taken up Devil’s Peak, one of Cape Town’s major hiking points.
There had been a moment, as we trekked up the mountain in the early morning hours where the misty clouds had engulfed us. Silence following us into the mist we had entered. Our paces slowing down as the air itself also seemed to come to a standstill. Breath and the rising chests were the only movement one could hear. Small drips from the rocky edges pattering on the ground as our feet met them at their resting point.
We had stopped severally within the clouds for a bit. Moving, stopping, slowing down, moving. A friend joked about the spirits of our ancestors surrounding us in this space. And then more silence, as we listened to the morning sounds of this new environment we had entered. There were a few birds chirping, the small sounds of the water still dripping from the rocky edges. The wind, too, seemed to have become silenced in these clouds. One could not speak, but simply listen and give gratitude for what lay before us, before taking the next step forward.
On the way up, we came across a number of people who warned us how windy it was up the peak. Others told us to hold on to our hats and coats. Others said it was drearily cold. Yet still, with each step ahead the weather seemed to part ways for us. The clouds shifted and moved teasing us with the view of Table Mountain that lay on the other side, before closing up again. An open and a close, even if for a second. Joy and then sorrow, even if for a second. We stood and watched this teasing dance of the clouds - as though it beckoned us further up. Dangling a promise of what we could expect, contrary to what others had told us.
Here we were. In what seemed like a liminal space of its own nature. Where ‘ahead’ held within it moments of wonder and a yearning for clear blue skies and gorgeous views, fed to us in little glimmers of hope by the clouds. While others sold us a different expectation altogether. The return was not an option - for how could we go back when we had already come this further up? And so instead we took a step at a time. Scaling the rocks until eventually, the clouds having perhaps gotten tired of their play-like nature, parted ways and gifted us a clear blue sky. No wind whatsoever. No cold. Our hats and coats still intact. The sky and the clouds letting our eyes feast upon the most gorgeous view of the city and the other mountains we had ever seen.
We were mesmerized by what lay in front of us, astounded by the slow breath of the wind upon our skins, little streams of quietness hidden within the bushes upon the rocks, and the sight of the blooming protea filling our hearts. And as though in queue, taking off our shoes to ground ourselves ever more into this presence. Into these rocks that once were held underground, submerged as coral, existing in their own liminality for close to 600 million years, hardening through the seasons, through the many feet that now walked upon them. These feet that dared sit and capture the moment, appreciating the stillness of how tall they stood, overlooking their own wonder too, their own beauty, and giving back to that which had sturdied them into the great heights they stood at and the great knowledge they now held.
Stuck in liminality, stuck in this stillness, but steadily transcending the wonders of time and movement. An internal transformation, an external mesmerisation. From coral to hardened rock. From water to land, once existing within fluidity and now in solid form, within this airy environment. Yet still dripping with trails of its fluid nature, compressed within itself. Trails of its past life expressing itself into this present moment we now held; and a future that would be told here, on this screen, amidst the confusion of colours and the refusal of a hand to motion itself forward. These trails would continue to offer the many feet that stumbled upon it a sense of wonder and awe and ease. Long after we were gone and only the essence of our being was held by these rocks in the moments when our feet stood grounded in them. The moment when our solid nature met another kind of solid. Body and rock. Grounded together, even if for a second.
Liminality had edged us forward into clear blue skies. Liminality was saying that I could redirect this energy back into the ground. Like these rocks, still grounded in the water. Like this being I was and am, still grounded in the heart. I was not stuck. The liminal, the existence of a motionless life, as though progress was not there. This stillness was not a space to fear, but to welcome and embrace.
—
Just a petal, I told myself while staring at my colouring book. Just one petal.
I picked up a pen. Blue. For the clear blue skies and the warm sun, this wintry weather had dared tease us with today. There was no progress to measure in this liminal space, in this stillness. The quietness and the solitude I felt would nourish me here. It was all I needed.
A stroke would do. And soon, as my blue pen danced on the edges of the fine petal, joy weaved itself slowly onto the page. Even if, but for a second.
on being “buried beneath” ( a spoken word/poem I put together a week or so back)