Here is a strange and bitter crop

What’s underneath?

One of my most favorite (rated by unnecessary time invested) internet phenomena is the existence of such a thing called "liminal space". Author Richard Rohr describes it as "where we are betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown." I describe it as "scenes from my chronic sleep paralysis nightmares."

Have you ever seen these pictures of empty hallways, or these so-called backrooms? Maybe they feel so familiar, but you don't know why, or how. It feels all a bit surreal. These settings elicit feelings of uneasiness, a certain knowing that I've seen something before but it's impossible to locate from where and when.

I often associate liminal spaces with dead malls (11ap throwback)- if you're more interested check out this video essay

Defining it literally, a liminal space is a place for and of transition; a state of being in-between, a sense of lingering in a state that would've otherwise been glanced over without a second thought.

It's "everything in the murky pond" - a  room full/empty of everything left unsaid, everything up to interpretation, everything unknown.

Perhaps that is the brilliance of Recitatif: Toni Morrison's intentionally ambiguous storytelling makes it so that the heart of the story is subjective to the analysis by the reader. As she leaves these metaphorical gaps of understanding, it creates lapses of explanation where it is up to each individual to distinguish similarities and differences, draw upon references and comparisons to gather the true meaning of the piece.

Both the liminal space phenomenon and the Recitatif short story left me quite unsettled; in fact, I felt a similar restlessness. An anxiety that I can't remember how I remember; an anxiety that the story was left unfinished. Yet perhaps that is the point - that I don't have all the answers, because it is now in my hands to search for them on my own terms, that it is I who must restructure the story.

In silence and in absence lies power- somehow, someway, we can find inspiration, hope, and possibility in what we do not know. 

An aside - did you know that Spotify has a "liminal" playlist? check it out

Another aside - the title is a lyric from "Strange Fruit" sung by Billie Holiday that makes me unsettled too, but not unsettled like when I think about liminal space, more like how unsettled I was when we read "The Flowers"