Meandering
On Monday, April 20, 5 weeks into California’s Shelter-In-Place order, I felt strangely different. The feeling was floaty, directionless, unmotivated, and lazy. Over the years I’ve learned this uncomfortable feeling is my unconscious trying to tell me something. The proper response is to pay attention. So I did.
I watched while the day was spent on the usual: cooking, cleaning, reading, and some exercise. Though the day felt wasted, I knew better. Time isn’t wasted, it’s always used, though sometimes it’s hard to see the product.
The following day was similar, meandering, often mindless. By Wednesday I’d connected a few dots. This feeling of malaise was similar to how I felt after my wife, Judy, died in 2012. Then I’d meandered and drifted, for several weeks, waiting for some inner message of guidance to surface. Eventually, it did. By Friday, the fifth day, I’d sensed what was similar about 2012 and 2020.
Liminal
Without the comfortable and familiar framework of my life, I can no longer do the activities that gave it purpose and meaning. I described this uncomfortable disorientation in my March 20 blog, My Roller Coaster Coronavirus Week. A friend explained that there is a word for this, it’s called a liminal state. Wikipedia explains:
“In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold”) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete. During a rite’s liminal stage, participants “stand at the threshold” between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which completing the rite establishes.”
Where will this liminal state lead me? You? Us?
Opportunity for Social Changes?
Are you hoping that this time of social and economic disruption is an opportunity for national reflection that leads to a more equitable and just society? I am. After all, what kind of society has blacks dying from Covid-19 at three times the numbers as whites? What kind of society pays life-saving healthcare workers so little, and life-destroying CEOs millions? What kind of society shovels most of a 2 ½ trillion-dollar “bailout” to large corporations, little to people, less to small businesses, and none to state and local governments? Sadly, ours does. I like to think we can do better, though I’m not holding my breath for broad cultural change. The powers-that-be hold tight control.
From the small scale of my daily life to the large-scale directions of our nation and the world, this unique coronavirus hands us uncertainty, anxiety, and the opportunity for major social and economic change. I plan on being patient while paying attention to signals from inside and out, watching for whatever ideas, directions, and inspirations are ready to emerge. I’m excited, anxious, and full of anticipation.
Are you pulled in a similar direction, to both personal reflections, and to broad social inequity issues? I would really like to hear from you and include your experience in future blogs. Please let me know. Thank you.
me, Barry Phegan
