Liminal Space

http://polaroid41.com/liminal-space/

Friday October 16th, 2020 - 10:48am.

I wanted to write about a “liminal space” but needed to check that I had the definition right before I started...here’s what I found:

“A liminal space is the time between the 'what was' and the 'next.' It is a place of transition, waiting, and not knowing. Liminal space is where all transformation takes place, if we learn to wait and let it form us.”

Perfect. I wanted to write about a “space between” and I love this definition.

The liminal space I have on my mind is the span of a few days when I was convinced that I was pregnant but I didn’t “know” yet...my period wasn’t late and it wasn’t yet time to take a pregnancy test, but I knew it in my bones.

I was so sure, I was so convinced….I’d never been sure like that before. I wonder what it would have been like had I been wrong? I think it would have felt like a betrayal of some kind. Like my body couldn’t be trusted….

So, this is what I remember:

I got a small role in a film that was shooting in Bourgogne. They wanted me to ride with them there and stay two nights, Friday and Saturday, then come back to Paris Sunday. I had tickets to see a Yoann Bourgeois show with Bruno at the Monfort that Saturday night and I was really only filming my scenes on Friday and Saturday, so I asked if I could go back on Saturday night by train. It totally wasn’t urgent...I wanted to see the show but really more than anything I just didn’t want to be away from Bruno for two nights. You see, I had already entered the liminal space. I knew in my heart I was pregnant but I didn’t really “know” it yet and I was waiting. I was in between what ‘was’ and ‘what would be.’

I bought a pregnancy test that Friday morning and stashed it under the bathroom sink. Hidden. I decided I would wait to take it until Sunday morning (it’s best to take them in the morning…). I didn’t want to take it Friday and be like WE’RE HAVING A BABY!!!! and then just leave on some shoot. I wanted to take it when I got back and we’d be together.

So, I bought the test, hid it and headed off, Bruno none the wiser.

All weekend at the shoot I kept thinking about if I were pregnant...what was I supposed to be doing? What do pregnant people do? I turned down the rum punch and tried to be careful about what I chose at the Chinese buffet. I said no to some ceasar salad at the catering (raw eggs!!). I felt kind of dreamy and detached. The shoot was fun and exciting but I felt removed...the idea that something so, so much more major was around the corner kept pulling my focus.

We were filming and staying in a massive Château. It was beautiful but also super creepy. I was staying up on the third floor...there was tons of space but I somehow ended up sharing a room with another woman.

A massive room with at least 4 beds in it, as I recall. There must have been other options but I remember not wanting to stay alone. The bathroom was down at the very end of a long hallway. I can picture it, many doors, the bathroom the last one on the left, and the end of the hallway had a window carved into it and some back stairs leading down to the floors below. Some of the people on the shoot knew the Château well….they’d filmed something else there before or maybe they’d already had several days of filming on this project earlier on. They were full of ghost stories about a woman in white that you could sometimes see at the end of the hall, passing from a bedroom there to the stairs, I believe. It was all in good fun but at the same time, they meant it. It was a ghost story but they were telling it for real.

I was spooked.

The Château was huge and old, some parts closed off and sinister seeming.

...

Polaroid photo and full text available at: http://polaroid41.com/liminal-space/