Photo credit: Benjamin Lehman on UnsplashLiminal is a word for the in-between. It describes states, times, spaces, etc., that exist at a point of change—a metaphorical threshold. . . . something that is barely perceptible or barely capable of eliciting a response.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/liminal-2024-09-15

These days between Christmas and New Year’s Day are liminal. Quiet, with few demands made. When an email is sent or a phone call is made, there is little expectation of a reply until after January 1. Practically no one schedules appointments or events unless they have previously confirmed that the other party will be around and available. We exist in a state of near-invisibility, anticipating a muted response to any inquiry, as if everyone is half-asleep.

Adding to this illusion today is the grayness, the wetness, the fog hovering near the ground that just yesterday was covered in snow and is now a soggy brown with hints of dead grass. A book I read as a child included a line that has remained with me: “New England, as usual, has gone white for the winter, and it will be many weeks before we see the earth again.”[1] Sadly, New England—at least, southern New England—no longer goes white for the winter. Our so-called winters are now little more than strings of rainy gray days, occasionally punctuated by squalls that leave heavy, wet snow/slush combinations to be scraped away before they turn into puddles topped with papery layers of ice like an inferior crème brûlée.

My lingering cough has relented at last, allowing itself to be largely controlled by the honey-flavored cough medicine, the honey-echinacea cough drops, the ice water, and the decaffeinated English breakfast tea. For the past two weeks, I’ve been coughing my brains out, waking with coughing spells that refuse to relent and which cause the cats to scurry from the room. On Christmas night when I stayed over at Mom’s, she urged me to make a flaxseed poultice to break up the cough. I vaguely remember her putting such poultices on my chest when I was a child, and while I don’t recall whether they were effective, I’d gladly have given it a shot during the first week of the cough when nearly any movement precipitated a coughing spell. Now, the notion seems like too little, too late.

In this limbo-like time, I’m more aware than usual of the friends who have been curiously silent this season. As always, I sent a small gift to a couple who are both long-time friends; while one of them forwarded their holiday newsletter to me before Christmas, the other (to whom I’d always been closer) has surprisingly offered no greetings, much less acknowledging the gift. Another friend—a retiree who lives in another time zone and who has no near family—has yet to return my Christmas Eve phone call in accordance with our tradition, although we exchanged “thank you” texts for our respective gift boxes (thus reassuring me that her silence was not due to some unfortunate incident beyond her control). Is it that we’re all so busy that minor courtesies have fallen by the wayside? Or is this their way of quietly cutting me loose? Am I being paranoid or self-centered, assuming that their silence has anything at all to do with me? Should I be reframing my questions? Do I simply have too much time to wonder? An acquaintance from the cat shelter posted on Facebook last night that she’s inviting anyone to join her for lunch on Monday at her new favorite restaurant, a gesture that feels so bold and brave that I let her know I plan to join the group (assuming my car appointment is complete by then). Perhaps what I need now is more of her confidence.

Confidence is not my byword these days. Instead, my wondering extends to the times to come, when this liminal time ends and we all return to our daily tasks. My cousin, who is five days older than I, has announced that she will be retiring on January 31, a few weeks shy of our 65th birthdays. My first thought on reading this was, “What will she do with her time?” Her note does not reflect that she has a plan; rather, she says that she will wait to see what God has in store for her. I called to congratulate her on her decision, reaching her voicemail and thus allowing me to avoid slipping by asking how she plans to fill her days.

On the issue of retirement, I’ve long had a firm belief: do not just retire from something—retire to something, and don’t retire until you know what you are retiring to. I formulated this belief after watching my father take an early retirement at age 58 with a golden handshake far too good to pass up. Dad had no plan for the next phase of his life, though. He may have thought he and Mom would travel, but she never liked traveling even when she could do it. At one point, they bought a condo in Vermont; I never understood the purpose since as far as I could tell, they did the same things in Vermont that they did at home, i.e., going out to lunch and shopping for things they didn’t need. Mom tried to convince him to volunteer his time assisting people who had questions about business, but he insisted that he didn’t want to be obligated to do anything. So the years passed, his health declined, and he ended up spending the lion’s share of his thirty-year retirement in front of the television.

Which is why I don’t have any plans for retirement (well, that and the need for income). My plan for these final years of practice is to continue as long as my income from legal work pays for the expenses of the business, mainly my legal research database and my professional liability insurance. I have sufficient flexibility to allow me to do what I need to do, including writing, book events, appointments, Mom care, and whatever else rears its head. At the same time, I have the intellectual stimulation that comes from researching new questions and applying the answers to unusual situations in order to steer counsel in the right direction. Plus, coming as I do from a long-lived people, there’s every reason to believe I have at least another twenty-five years ahead of me, and I need to ensure that I can afford to live, so I need to keep working.

Obviously, in retirement, I will write. It’s one of the few givens. On the other hand, in another ten to fifteen years, I expect that I’ll want to dial back my in-person events—the idea that I’ll be tottering into an event space as an eighty-year-old woman, still hauling a wagon bearing bins of books and décor, seems unlikely. Since such events are where I make the vast majority of my book sales, it’s fair to assume that when I stop participating in these events, sales will die off. Of course, something else may come up between now and then which presents new opportunities. Regardless, I don’t ever expect to be living on book sales, which means planning in other ways is necessary.

The question of how to structure my future days clouds these liminal times. Maybe it’s seeing Mom every week and witnessing first-hand how much assistance she requires that makes me preternaturally aware of the changes that will likely affect my functioning. Will I be able to stay in my own home? If so, how will I manage the care and maintenance of the house and the land? Will I one day need to stop driving? If so, how will I get myself to stores and doctors and everything else? Three of my four cats are super-seniors—in 2025, they’ll turn 15, 16, and 17—but I cannot imagine a world in which I would voluntarily live in a catless environment, which means that however things develop, I must have cats in my home. When the felon takes office on January 20, 2025, so much of the social safety net on which we’ve relied—including Medicare and Social Security—will be at risk due to his bizarre fondness for appointing the inept and ignorant to high-ranking positions. So many questions, so much uncertainty. The days when I knew (or at least, thought I knew) what was coming next, what I could rely on—those days are about to be gone.

Such a strange, rambling post. I don’t know how many of you are beset with thoughts, ponderings, worries, and/or concerns such as these. Am I the only one, or am I simply the only one saying these things out loud? I’m inclined toward the latter, but that may merely be self-comfort.

What are you pondering in these liminal times? Are you worried about how 2025 will bring? Are you eager for changes, whether personal or large-scale? Are you making plans for a new direction? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments if you’re so inclined. You may give someone else an idea or a scrap of encouragement.

Wishing you all rest, peace, and joy in the final fragment of 2024, as well as courage for the days to come!

[1]In a Mirror, by Mary Stolz (1953).