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If you’ve known me for any length of time then you know there are two places I love … no, need … to be: the ocean and the forest. I’ve purposely been trying to spend more time in each – not swimming, not hiking, just … being.

Over the past few weeks I’ve done some much-needed wandering and found myself at the same place, one that feels magical – mystical even when I just sit in it. It is neither ocean, nor forest but it is simultaneously both. When I sit in the intersection between forest and ocean and really listen with all my senses, it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between the two for water rushing through pebbles sounds much like wind in tall trees. The taste of salt air mixed in with earthy damp. Everything beneath my feet bares resemblance to both forest and ocean. Neither one nor the other, but both.

I was trying to figure out why, exactly, I’ve been drawn to this space. I’ve been to this physical spaces many times before, why was it speaking to me now?

It finally came to me – liminality.

Liminal spaces are those that are neither one place nor another but often simultaneously both. For my fellow word-nerd friends, the latin “limen” means “threshold” and in days-gone-by it was the place where grain was separated from chaff … by threshing. In architecture a liminal space is the boundary between two spaces or rooms with different purposes. Anthropologically speaking, being in a liminal space means you are on the precipice of something new, but not quite there yet. Neither new, nor old and simultaneously both.

Often seen as ambiguous or disorienting, we have been taught (culturally) to rush through liminal spaces; finish one thing before you begin another. Sever all ties with the old. Have a solid plan before you move on. Do not rest in between.

In reality, liminal spaces are beautiful; powerful yet calm, disorienting yet strangely familiar, scary and invigorating. It is a space whose purpose is to provide a place to rest. To stop, observe, feel. To disconnect and to reconnect. Nothing and everything. Nowhere and everywhere. It is a place where if you really look carefully, you are surrounded by death and new life. One reliant on the other.

I’m living in my own liminal space right now. Having just come off a huge summer of swimming, trying to decide what’s next (although I already know that one, I’m not rushing it). But that’s not really it. I made the decision in March to teach part-time this year to make room for something else. Initially the “plan” was to be up and running by August. Then September. Then October. But now I’ve come to appreciate the value in taking my time getting to the next; wandering in this liminal space. Finding all the beautiful things here to be discovered. Things I didn’t know I’d stumble upon. Letting go of the old and finding the new – or letting it find me. Had I been rushing, I’d have likely missed them altogether. It’s not just a matter of slowing down, I t’s being comfortable with the unknown. It’s not easy, but it’s also not difficult. It just … is.

What is it you ask? Well, you’ll have to wait. Not long, I promise …