Finding Campbell and Tolkien

"We must be willing to let go
Of the life we had planned,
So as to have the life
That is waiting for us."
- Joseph Campbell

Frodo: "I wish it need not have happened in my time."
Gandalf: "So do all who live to see such times; but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

This week's news has me teetering between hope and fear. Headlines that read, "First Vaccine Starts Human Trials!" or "Vaccine Possible by September!" are followed by, "Virus will rebound by August" or "Virus Compounded by Flu Season Will be Worse." Along with the reported majority of Americans, I want to get back to some degree of normal but I am afraid that my family will get sick.  We are in a prolonged and uncertain period of in-between, what writers call a liminal space.

Google defines a liminal space as a "transitional or transformative space, a waiting area between one point in time and space and the next." What it doesn't say: liminal spaces, while often grounds for creative new solutions, are profoundly uncomfortable. Most people do not like them at all.  When I think about existing in a liminal space from now to 2022 (as some headlines indicate), I falter. My heart rate goes up, my brain starts spinning and projecting odd black-and-white "what-if" scenes against a background of frantic grey matter. My teenagers attending college online at the kitchen table, our swimming pools closed indefinitely, no jobs, oh my!  In response, the small rational part of my brain starts rummaging through old books, movies, poems, and prayers for quotes to throw up against the screen and stop my perseverating.

My prefrontal cortex often finds the Campbell and Tolkien quotes above and hastily inserts them into the reels of my mental movies, stopping their progression like an rod thrown between gears. Some balanced, thoughtful segment of my brain realizes that time is a gift, no  matter how uncertain or unknown.  I have been given this life, these days with my family, to celebrate and work with, and even when things smooth out and regulate I will not get a do-over. Each day is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to appreciate existence. It's difficult to let go of hopes and plans that root in the past, and to avoid spinning projections about an unknown future, but the best way through this liminal space is to appreciate the now, the time we have.

Stay safe and well.
xoxo
Laura