In This Liminal Space

Posted on November 11, 2018 by TJ

It’s been almost a week since I’ve written a post. I’ll try to fill in the blanks.

EJ had his MRI last Wednesday. We won’t know the results until this coming Tuesday when he meets with his doctor. We are hoping/praying that he is just struggling with the side effects of his medications and/or stress and not anything more serious. Once we learn the results, we can try to figure out what to do next. I am both eager and dreading EJ’s appointment. If the results are good then the doctor appointment will end in relief, but if the results are bad then I’d like to prolong this period of ignorance before we are plunged into trying to figure out what to do next.

This time before we find out the results of the MRI is a sort of Liminal Space. As various websites define it, the word “liminal” comes from the Latin word limens, which means “threshold.” There are certain places or states of being in which you feel different, off, uncomfortable, or anxiously floating in the inbetween. Often, these uncomfortable spaces turn out to be Liminal Spaces. They are places where a transition occurs between the threshold and the place that waits before us. Often, when we are in Liminal Spaces, we have the feeling of just being on the verge of something. That’s where EJ and I are: Between one thing and another, one thing ending but the other not quite beginning. EJ says that losing his job opens up opportunities and possibilities. He just has to figure out what to do next, and it depends on what we learn on Tuesday.

EJ has been feeling restless. He has always had a job so it’s sort of difficult for him to be at loose ends. He has been trying to keep himself busy as he ponders what to do next. He has been spending a lot of time working in the garage. He finally has the time and energy to work on getting it organized. He is finding a lot of items he forgot he had.

On Friday EJ and I sorted through boxes in our pantry. The pantry is actually a large indoor storage room located in the entrance hallway between the garage and the kitchen. I believe that the previous owner of our house sold jeep parts and kept them in this room. We keep our chest freezer in this room and store our canned foods on the shelves. We also store other items that need more protection than the garage, such as our roaster oven, extra dishes, extra blankets, sleeping bags, picnic baskets, cans of paint, books that we will either donate or sell, and other such stuff. We went through the boxes and threw away unwanted items and then took a load of other items to Goodwill. We still have to sort through several boxes of books and tidy up the room a bit, but we made good progress, emptying several large totes and freeing up some space.

My friend and I enjoy buying each other gifts through the year, whenever we see something that we think the other would enjoy. She recently sent me a book of crochet patterns for adorable stuffed toys. She liked them so much that she placed an order for some of them. If I could have, I would have given made them all for her for free, but she insists on paying for them to help us out. She told her sister about them, and now her is also ordering some to give as Christmas gifts. Between them, they have ordered nine toys, which means that I am spending the majority of my day crocheting. The toys are adorable and as soon as I finish them, I will list them at my Etsy store. So far, I have finished a unicorn and two bunnies. I have a teddy bear, reindeer, a unicorn (different than the first), cat, lochness monster, and a dragon yet to make.

These are the adorable critters from the pattern book.

Friday evening it began to snow, and it has snowed ever since. The National Weather Service forecast shows it snowing through Wednesday. EJ says that areas to the north of us got six inches of snow–the UP got 18 inches. We have maybe 3-4 inches on the ground so far but it is still snowing. It looks as if Winter is now here to stay.

It’s very cozy sitting in my chair with a hot drink–coffee, herbal tea, or hot chocolate–on a snowy day with Hannah Joy on my lap. Hannah gets upset if I don’t let her on my lap. She goes from pacing around to pushing away my laptop to increasingly loud grumbling until I let her on my lap. I recently learned that Pitbulls crave touch and cuddles. They don’t take no for an answer. So Hannah (Hosanna Banana) Joy snuggles with me as I crochet.

Now that we have snow, I am assuming that the bears have snuggled down for their long winter’s nap. I went out yesterday and filled the birdfeeders with seed and suet. I haven’t seen any birds or other animals eating from them yet, but it will take them time to find it. I enjoy watching the wildlife up near the house.

Yesterday afternoon I spotted Miss Madeline Meadows, our sweet serial killer cat, in the front yard. She was playing with a small rodent she had caught, pouncing on it and throwing it up into the air and catching it. It sucks to be the mouse.

The chickens don’t like the snow so they’ve been staying inside their coop. I thought they had stopped laying eggs for the Winter because I was finding only one or two eggs a day–and sometimes none. But the other evening I went out to shut the chickens in the coop for the night. I always count them to make sure they are all safely inside. I saw hens go into the bottom level of the “fancy coop.” I shone my flashlight inside to count them and found a whole pile of eggs in the corner. They don’t usually lay their eggs there so I had missed them when I gathered them. I guess the hens aren’t quite finished laying eggs yet.

Well, it’s time to get back to crocheting…