Liminality

Autumn is a liminal time of year. A time of change and transition. Summer is not yet done completely, there are still berries and fruits to harvest. The sun is still projecting warmth, but there is a nip in the air that is a portent of winter to come.

On Friday, I could have fooled myself it was still summer. In a rare fit of nourishing my soul, I met up with friend, we dressed up, went to a lovely gastro pub down the road, and sat outside with great food and a cheeky glass of rosé. It was Friday, dammit, and we had both agreed to take to the rest of the afternoon rest of the week of. I was wearing a sleeveless dress, and it was pleasantly warm in the enclosed garden.

The hours of daylight, however, are growing shorter, as the wheel of the year circles towards the equinox. It is now barely light when my alarm goes off at 6.15am, and if I don’t walk the dogs before dinner, we will be out in the dark. After the equinox, the wheel of the year seems to accelerate towards winter, and all pretence of summer fades fast. Although the sun was shining today, and both sunrise and sunset look positively tropical through the window, there is a distinctly chilly bite in the air. The coming season is waking up, just as creatures that need warmth are winding down to hibernate.

Autumn is a betwixt and between season, hovering as it does between the fading of summer and the encroachment of winter. It doesn’t have it’s own weather identity, but borrows from the borders of both, offering snatches and glimpses, like so many postcards from another time and place. One minute it’s warm and balmy, then the temperature dips within a matter of minutes and rain rides in on a wind that came from nowhere. Within a short time, a rainbow heralds the end of the shower, the clouds clear, and that slanting golden light of September shines through as if nothing happened. Conkers and acorns are falling to the ground in abundance, and yet roses and one of my tomato plants are still pushing out buds.

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I find there is a certain stillness to the days around the equinox – a gradual coming into balance, and then a moment of suspension as a change happens, subtle but there. A moment of stillness between inhalation and exhalation, a moment of possibility of change but of stasis in the moment. A serene clear sky, with peach and orange on the horizon blending to grey then deep blue marked the moment this year. Glass-clear air, no wind, not even birds flocking at dusk. Just silence.

It is a time of endings and beginnings. Endings are no more than the commencement of a new phase. The end of summer, the end of days without framework, and the beginning of structure and timetable and a need to be in specific places at specific times.

As a parent, this is marked by the beginning, a couple of weeks back, of the new school term. This has brought real endings and beginnings for both my children. My eldest has moved into her own home, and my youngest has moved to the Sixth Form at a different school.

Changes of residence have, for me, always been accompanied by torrential rain on the M4. When my husband and I sold up everything and moved to rural West Wales a year into our marriage, the heavens opened as we left our much loved home in Henley. Fifteen years later, when we moved across the country from Pembrokeshire to Windsor, again, we drove through heavy rain that made driving terrifying on the way to our new house. Last weekend, as I drove my daughter to her new home in south Wales, the heavens opened yet again. I see this as a kind of atmospheric ritual cleansing, a washing off the old to allow new beginnings on a fresh page. Tabula rasa. To me it marked a transition that my child has officially flown the nest, fledged into her own life. Just like a juvenile bird, she still needs some parental guidance, but mostly now it is about figuring it out herself and living life on her own terms.

New beginnings in new places allow for starting from zero. In a new school, my son can be the person he is growing into without anyone having preformed opinions of who he is, or how he measures up to his sister, or what he is like. For me, my daughter moving into her own home is a huge step towards her independence. Sure, she still needs support in learning how to run a home. That is a massive step beyond university accommodation, where you can call maintenance if something doesn’t work, you don’t have to deal with bills, because they are included, and there is always someone else around you somewhere.

That equinox balance point is the tiny pause where these changes become set as the new pattern for the rest of the year.

The liminality of betwixt and between has a powerful resonance for me as I navigate the journey through perimenopause. Every time I think, this is it, I have emerged from the chrysalis, my body reminds me that I am not quite there yet. Likely not fertile (but not taking any chances!) but not yet completely emerged into life beyond fertile years.

There is a bittersweet resonance between autumn and perimenopause, in that both season and lifestage mark the impending end of the harvest and of fertility. Like autumn weather, my mood can swing from serene to stormy. Sunny or chilly. Happy or just plain irritable. But it is also a liminal period in a woman’s life. A betwixt and between fertile years/motherhood and what lies beyond. Beyond the harvest, the earth can seem bare and barren, and I can see how this may be how some women perceive the end of fertility. But this is just the space for the bringing into being of something different. Moving backwards, or even staying the same is not possible. The forces of nature work to their own cycles and schedules.

Western society does not have a right of passage to mark this transition to the years beyond fertility. Indeed, moving into menopause is generally perceived as simply growing old. This has negative connotations in a society that still mostly measures a woman’s value in terms of her attractiveness, which is closely coupled to youthfulness. Elders are not really valued for their experience and wisdom in a world that wants only the energy, exuberance and perfect skin and bodies of youth.

But to return to the autumn comparison, in the season between summer and winter, nature takes on some of its most glorious moments, the colours of leaves - reds, oranges, yellows, mellow browns – creating an unashamedly vibrant riot of colour. As a woman rediscovering the joy of having time to do what I want to do as the kids become less reliant on me, I’m relishing leaping into a time of being myself again as opposed to being defined as my children’s mother.

But I’m not yet ready to reach for the shawl and slippers and declare myself old. I rejoice that my body is still strong and fit and capable of doing things that I cannot imaging either of my grandmothers doing. Running for pleasure (and for fitness!), swimming in the local lake, riding a horse whenever I get the chance. But equally I can’t imagine either of my grandmothers sitting down and writing their thoughts, and certainly not writing anything that they would publish. In fact, society doesn’t really have a defined role for older women, especially strong, independent and feisty ones.

All liminal periods and places bring with the a frisson of uncertainty or even fear. It is about something changing, which inevitably means that there is a degree of the unknown. Whether that is walking the dog in the dark or observing changes in my body (when did those wrinkles around my eyes appear?), the new that is coming in may not always be welcome. But what if that can be reframed? In the opening words of the Brandi Carlile song The Story:

“all of these lines across my face tell the story of who I am,

so many stories of where I’ve been and how I got to where I am”.

Instead of fear, what if we were to welcome change with curiosity and wonder, open the possibility that good may come of them? A few nights back, walking in the dark, I heard and then briefly saw a tawny owl. I would not have seen her had I stayed home and just let the dogs intot the garden. In my body, I don't miss menstruating, even though that alone announces the end of child bearing years. There are always possibilities of something exciting happening, of experiencing something differently , or just embracing the moment to choose an identity instead of having one thrust upon us.

In autumn as a season of betwixt and between, I am particularly aware of the liminality of this time in my life. I’m embracing the changes that come as exciting. It’s a period of expansion into a different phase of life. I don’t feel that I am losing anything, more shedding a skin and moving into a time where I can choose who I truly be. As the wheel of the year turns towards winter, it’s a time of hunkering in, on the surface quietening, but inside getting ready to burst into growth and blooms come spring.