I’ve had a recurring dream since childhood. A dystopian dream. They all differ in content, but the general theme is the same. I’m trapped in a dictatorship of sorts, and the only reasonable course of action is to break-on through to the other side. There is no compromising with those in authority. A revolution is of no use either. The war is lost, and they have won. So, in the dream, I’m seeking escape through various means- a fence, a wall, a bridge… a no man’s land between here and there. Captivity and freedom. In other words, I dream of liminal places.
A lonely hallway
A stretch of highway
A parking lot in twilight
Liminal places are regions of transition. They are often lonely and a melancholic air wafts through the open angular spaces. Sometimes, these places can serve as temporary shelters for transients- escapees from war, poverty, famine, and any number of ills that has afflicted humanity throughout its history. Then the places are abandoned once again and regain their air of liminal solitude.
At the height of our lock-downs in 2020, the city became a ghost town with boarded up windows. It was a spooky feeling to be in the middle of downtown on a Saturday night, and there was almost nobody on the streets, which are usually closed to traffic on the weekend to let the crowds spill onto the street. Now it was all empty, and an eerie silence permeated the area.
Now life returns. Vibrant, bursting with confidence. It cannot be stamped down. That flame! It finds a way to grow, to put its mark wherever it can, even in liminal spaces like bridges; one way or the other, it blossoms in every corner, and asserts its life-affirming will.
I always escape tyranny in my dream. By wit and force. Happy to find freedom but sad to leave home. It is not easy to settle in a new place and leave the only world you’ve known behind. But sometimes you just have to cross that boundary and reach beyond the lonely spaces.
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