The Space Between

Running in liminal places

I’m up early on a Wednesday in July. It’s a rest day, but I saw something on my run yesterday that compels me to return. Dark, obscure, oddly uncomfortable—but strangely magnetic. I need to put my feet there again to try and catch the details, name the feelings.

We’ve rented an early 1900s craftsman in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood to hang out with our kids and their families for a few days. Getting to the front door, across creaky floors, without waking our grandkids, seems unlikely. But I grew up in an old house, so I’m practiced in this type of sneaking.

Shoes in hand, I glide through the dark upstairs hallway in my socks, tiptoe down the long staircase (quieter when you step close to the wall), and slip into the still-cool Pacific Northwest morning. Up the hill, just one block, and I’m there again.

Seattle is built on undulating terrain that rises and falls from the Cascade foothills before disappearing under the black waters of the Puget Sound. As the city matured and needed to move people around, hundreds of staircases were built to connect neighborhoods and now non-existent trolley stations.

I found several on yesterday’s run, and am back this morning to consider them again.

Neither Here nor There

Liminality—being on the cusp of, or in, some kind of threshold or transition—is often thought of in psychological terms. A person in a period of personal transformation (rite of passage, major life change, identity shift) is in a “liminal state.” They are between two states of being.

Over time, the concept of betweenness has been extended to physical places, in built and architectural environments, as well as in nature. This is the kind of liminality I experience on a moss-covered Seattle staircase that disappears into darkness.

We also feel it when we veer off main streets and run the alleyways betwixt. Here in Hawaii—where my wife and I are housesitting for a month—oceanfront access is often gained through walled and fenced passages with private property on both sides. In these corridors, we’re not in town, not on the beach.

Look around on your next run and you’ll see them—bridges, tunnels, hallways, paths. These are not places we linger. They’re meant to move through. Even an empty park could be considered liminal as it sits in a state of pause, waiting for activity to resume.

Naming the Feelings

Standing at the foot of that Queen Anne staircase on a Wednesday morning in July, I’m struck by contrasts. On the street behind, houses are coming to life with work-week energy. Ahead, the stairs are quiet and still. Behind, the rising sun bathes manicured lawns in warm light. Ahead, overgrown trees arch low from both sides, throwing the path into inky shadow.

I’m a fifty year-old man. Of course I’m going up. But what an interesting sensory cocktail. I’m feeling:

Anticipation, like the first climb of a roller coaster. Clack, clack, clack. It’ll be fine. Clack, clack. Trepidation—just a little. Ambiguity… Anything could happen. Potential… Hey, anything could happen! Solitude. Suspension of self and time. Yes, timelessness. The same as it was and the same as it will be. At the top now, relief. Accomplishment? Connection?

I’m not sure. Let’s find another staircase.

Going In, Staying In

On your next run, duck into an unfamiliar alley and notice. What do you see? Garbage cans, weeds, piles of things people will deal with later. What do you feel? You’re not supposed to be here and can’t know what you’ll encounter. Is there an unfenced dog ahead? An overprotective homeowner having a bad day?

Anxiety rises. Stay with it.

The uneasiness tunes you in to the present moment and there’s a shift. No longer carried away by thoughts of the future, your step lightens. Ugly turns beautiful. An old wooden door repurposed as a garden gate. A lively backyard barbecue. A small boat, paint peeling, ten-horsepower Evinrude hanging over the back. You remember fishing with your dad.

If you hadn’t stayed with it, you would have missed the part where uncertainty turns to possibility, then sharpens into belief.

Take a little time to be amazed by something you won't enjoy unless you consciously choose to focus on it. See the things you can't see when you're rushing. Hear the things you can't hear when you're stressing. Get so caught up in your senses that everything else seems to stop for a moment—because things don't actually stop. So we have to be the ones who do it.
- Lori Deschene

The Finish Line

Life is not lived in the fleeting beginnings and imagined endings, but in the grays and gradients between.

When we run in liminal spaces, we accept an invitation to stay in the transition, rather than hurrying to the destination. We’re connected more deeply with the places we run, open to the stories told by both sides of the photograph.

In the macro, we’re always “between two states” anyway—birth and death, don’cha know—so what’s the rush?

Run lightly,
-mike

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