On Mist

As I exited the venue I had just graduated high school in, the only thoughts that occupied my mind were 1) freeing myself from the annoying gown I had been in for hours, 2) finding my family in the chaos, and 3) the image of the venue after everyone would have left: empty, quiet, void, save for the ventilation’s occasional hum through the rafters above. For some reason, the image intrigued me.

Finished.

Reflecting one week after the fact, I believe the reason why the image of the aftermath was so intriguing was because of the stark contrast it paints: thunderous applause versus threatening silence; kids victoriously throwing up their caps versus the caps laying on the floor after they left. The empty venue is a symbol of the middle, lying between the last 13 years of my life and the rest of it.

Forgotten.

I was never interested in the idea of the liminal space until quite recently. “You have been in one. You may not have had a word for it at the time,”  according to a recent article by Meridian University Psychology department. I myself only connected the title and the concept a month ago after the debut of the new movie Backrooms, which centers around the main character, Clark getting stuck in a yellow-walled labyrinth he discovers in the basement of a furniture store.

“The term comes from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold. A liminal space is a place of transition, an in-between space that exists on the boundary of what came before and what has not yet arrived.”

As a visual learner, I see the delicate boundary between summer nights and summer days, characterized by the early-morning dew on the grass and mist in the air. The time of day is distinct, the features are distinct, yet it is defined by the conflict between what was and what is to come. It’s fleeting in that way.

Mist.

Humanity’s fascination with liminal space is apparent throughout history, appearing across all avenues of expression, from books (Camazotz in A Wrinkle in Time), to television series (Season 1 Episode 1 "Where is Everybody?" of The Twilight Zone), to art (Hopper’s 1942 work, Nighthawks). Recently, however, our interest seems to have grown from a passive amusement to an active longing for any opportunity to completely immerse oneself in a liminal space. 

“Over the past several years, online communities…have turned liminal space imagery into a distinct aesthetic category,” explains the Meridian University article. As a fan of themed playlists myself, YouTube increasingly recommends videos that promise you the experience of a liminal space with images like vast landscapes with cloudy skies and misty air accompanied by lyric-less, fuzzy-sounding, synthesizer-produced music. For further discovery, search for “a playlist for exploring liminal spaces,” by popular creator “nobody” on YouTube to find a video that delivers exactly this. Enumerated in the comments section below this video, there is a common desire many people seem to share. “If I was rich,” claims one user, “I'd buy a warehouse or an abandoned school and purposely redecorate it for such a feeling…” “I wish there was a place I could go that was nothing but these kinds of liminal spaces. Just walk around when I need to think or I’m feeling stressed out.”

There is a palpable desire for complete immersion into an empty, quiet, lonely world, which another user aptly sums up: “imagine waking up in a world where you are the only living being and everything is stuck in the 90's.”

Society has moved from interest to infatuation, with a further underlying longing to return to childhood landmarks. “[These spaces] reflect the experience of change itself. This is part of why images of empty hallways or abandoned malls can trigger a sense of nostalgia,” Meridian University concludes. 

Simply put, the only world we lacked responsibility for was the world of our childhood, which is why liminal spaces are most often places that remind us of our youth, like vintage Burger Kings or empty houses. 

According to the very etymology of the term, a liminal space is a threshold between old and new. If we want to remain in what we believe is liminality, we don’t want to keep going past that threshold. People necessarily treat liminal spaces as such when they view their current lives as non-liminal, never ending. When the past becomes the threshold, the present becomes the future, distant, out of our control. Desire becomes a threat to progress. 

The attraction to curated liminal spaces originally confused me. They interest me in the sense that I’ve toyed with the idea in personal writings, but I’ve never longed to be in one. However, after the image of the empty venue didn’t leave me alone, I realized I was missing something. I immersed myself in liminal environments online, watched Kane Parson’s original four-year-old footage that inspired his full movie and listened to “liminal” sounding music. The feeling didn’t go away and all I could seem to gain from my experiences were feelings of unease and, quite frankly, laziness. I didn’t understand the addiction to these environments that my generation seems to have. I wanted to move on to my other ideas and stop dwelling on what felt like nothing. I did what I did, I do what I do, and my future is no concern. 

Acknowledging the real timeline of human events led me to a question I hadn’t previously considered, but already knew the answer to: Isn’t life itself just one long liminal space? 

I could see how this question can be confusing to someone who doesn’t understand the alpha and omega, as the threshold can’t be determined without a beginning and end. 

  I recalled the misty-aired landscape I originally conceived. It occurred to me that almost every video I watched in my research featured at least one dewy, misty landscape in the transient night-and-daylight. The weather always looked as if a storm was imminent, the grey skies warning of impending doom, as if the picture’s artists had forgotten that storms, like hard times, will clear just as reliably as they come. The images’ mist, whenever present, felt stagnant. The clouds appeared as if they too would never move. The images convey the feeling that its viewers desire: an eternal liminal space where the storms are just barely held off by a halt of time.

Mist.

Isn’t life just one long liminal space?

With minimal philosophizing and recalling basic Biblical principles, I came to my answer: Jesus is the alpha and the omega, and our life here on Earth is the threshold between our creation by God and our reunification with Him. 

Yes, life is liminal. We don’t need pictures and music and movies to launch ourselves into the in-between that is already defined by our divine creation and our worldly end. This world, like all attempts to immerse oneself in a liminal space will cease to exist in due time. But life is not lonely, outdated, fuzzy, or carefully curated. People want liminal spaces, God gave us one called “life,” and people said “no, not that kind of liminal space! One without responsibility and a call to work towards something!”

Personally, I like my life. I wouldn’t want to return to my childhood no matter how many fond memories I have of it. If our creator wanted us to stay in one place with no responsibilities and no problems, it would be so. But we are made for a higher calling that can only be fulfilled by moving forward in the liminal space we already find ourselves in. 

I remember the early-morning dewy mist on the grass that I have yet to become accustomed to this season. Quick to come, quick to go. It’s a pretty sight and it serves a great purpose: transferring moisture from the air to the ground, nourishing the plants. But without the other phases of the weather, mist is purposeless. Nothing. In any weather, I find beauty, for it is God’s creation. 

I don’t need liminal spaces the way others do. I already know that life is fleeting, and that nothing gold can stay. 

“What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’”

James 4:14-15