On the subjectivity of 18 years
GRADUATION! plus word-nerd allure, embroidered pillows, and concertinas sold
Good morning lovely humans, from a mid-June gloaming — one that summons my love of summer evenings, and memories of silhouetted neighborhood swing dancers, and the expressive waning chirps of bird-gossip. I have just trimmed the rose bushes slightly above the five-leafed stems, where finished blossoms lingered while others hover to begin.
The word of the week is liminality. Drawn from limen (Latin), it means: a crossing, a threshold, the transitional in-between. The space between worlds, or doorsteps, or clarities. My friend and colleague/co-conspirator Kim Carfore, PhD — founder of Wild Women and brilliant ecofeminist-immersive scholar — uses this word as abundantly as I do, and she is among those who have gently reminded me that this time in my life is indeed liminal, carrying the characteristic of a threshold, a becoming.
I first encountered the word liminality in summer 2003 during a National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar on “Death and Dying,” where I was 24 and everyone else was in their 40s, 50s, or 60s and had a doctorate [obviously I had little business being there, but they accepted my app so, onward]. I had an undergrad degree in human biology, had worked in bioethics centers on two coasts, and did a turn of clinical pastoral education (which means: hospital chaplaincy training — in my case, unaffiliated and nondogmatic). I had proposed, for that NEH (RIP) seminar, that my research project would explore theory and practice of quotidian rituals and how they shape people’s practices and orientations toward meaning at the end of life. It was a proposal not in pursuit of an answer or analytic diagnosis, but rather the multiplicity of ways that people shape our tangibility and belonging even when in a period of unmistakeable liminality, toward the final exhalation. The next month, my former father-in-law was diagnosed with esophageal cancer and I found my maternal grandmother immobile on the tile floor of a bathroom after a stroke. (As it turns out my scholarship and life events have never been too far apart.)
But in the moments before the restructuring of family patterns due to terminal illness, I remember sitting happily in the University of Utah library, reading Arnold Van Gennep’s anthropological/folklorist theories of rites of passage — like all theories, imperfect and instructive (even as also probably quite colonial and structuralist, though it’s been a minute since I’ve read them). This notion of liminality, with its gossamer Heisenberg-uncertainty-principle sheen, has stuck. I mapped them into a spreadsheet alongside other theorists. I remember presenting this spreadsheet to Siobhán Garrigan, PhD over a breakfast of eggs Florentine that she generously agreed to have with me while I, as an incoming M.A.R. student, argued absurdly and anxiously with imposter syndrome, that I should be let into an advanced course in Ritual Theory and Sacramental Theology. (The spreadsheet somehow convinced and was perhaps a magical amulet, because she is godmother to the kiddo whose bright center has helped to determine some of the conditions of my own experience for the last 18 years.)
By the time you read this, my kiddo (aka teen and subject of own life) will have graduated high school. !!! Teen heads to college “out west” in August, where I get to be the dorkily thrilled “move all this stuff into the dorm” parent, and my ride-or-die is coming to be my +1 so that when I can’t safely drive away because ALL THE FEELINGS, Leigh will take the wheel and direct me to a glass of rosé, a big hug, and we will toast all the years that have been, and the ones that are still to be — especially for this amazing teen. And also in different ways, for me.
Come early September 2025, my lease ends and I go on a yearlong research fellowship. And so these two generational Zenners — one by surname name and both by character and comportment, sharing what other moms have identified as stunning similarity in our voices when we are yelling at soccer games (lol) — we will launch, laugh, linger, love, and limn in our individual ways into however the next phases become.
Since divorce I have oriented the energies of my week toward the sequence of days when my kiddo would walk across our doorstep — limen — and into our Wednesday night reunion that would mark the return of our time together (“Wednesday is my FAVORITE day of the week!” was the 9-year old’s utterance that made me smile and lurch in equal measure).
^ Self-explanatory
In order to arrange my schedule to pick this kid up from school and be present in the ways I could, like many solo parents I maintained bonkers schedules and extremely slim margins in order to bring my best energies forward for the most important things, aka parenting, while also making ends meet and seeking a modicum of professional dynamism. I know I am lucky that I could find a way to do so.
I’m fast-forwarding a lot of life to say: this graduation, this celebration of my teen, has been one of the best days of my life. I am grinning and laughing with the fullness of things. If you’re here for some or all of the celebrations, you know what I mean, and thank you for carrying me and my kiddo in your heart in these years. BIGGEST LOVE.
In other news …
^ outside the bathrooms at the NY Society for Ethical Culture. SWOON
Over the years I’ve given lots of talks in lots of venues — yet the past two weeks have been new and differently open-hearted, from the NY Society for Ethical Culture (June 8) to the Skä-Noñh Center and collaborations with Kim Carfore, Chip Callahan, Phil Arnold, Sandy Bigtree, and generous interlocutors from the Onodaga Nation (June 14+). I’ll say more when I can link to available media. I am keen to return to midtown Manhattan and upstate NY as a listener/learner, with these wonderful humans and the more-than-human worlds.
Also, I mentioned breezily at the end of a prior post that my landlord is selling my apartment. Why not add to the liminality!
As part of the parsing, I sold the concertina that I bought circa 2020 from McNeela Music. I mean, yes, ofc in theory it would be great if I could play the maudlin instrument with the effervescence of an Irish 30-something who’s been devoted since childhood … but having recovered from the catastrophe-inspired hobby-optimism of the early-Covid19 pandemic phases as a solo parent and wage-earner, I am just really happy to say that this concertina (the Wren 2, for those curious) has found a FABULOUS HOME with one of the founders of NEW LEAF Irish music here in the US. Honestly their music is as close as a seisún as I’ve seen stateside, so the kindness of the purchaser and the caliber of the music made my heart glow.
In conclusion: Slainté to all the graduates! Let’s all eat some watermelon, go to the beach, be with your people. And until next time: have courage, BE KIND, call out injustice, and dance your fecking (as they say in Ireland) hearts out. ~ CNZ
