Genevieve Scales

Last week, as I took my mother-prescribed “get outside, it’s beautiful out” walk, I pushed past Saint John’s Cemetery on Pine Street and onto the Brunswick Landing Perimeter Trail. Initially, it was just like any other walk—the breath of fresh air that you inevitably give in to, because classes are weighing you down, and your mom is probably right (she usually is). The farther I pushed past the graveyard, the deeper the forest got. Maple trees stood crooked and isolated among wiry grasses. The darkness was soothing—until it stopped, and the trail spat me out beside Bath Road, face-to-face with a sign that read, “Leaving Property of Bowdoin College.” It was unreal. Behind me was the forest, rich with autumnal mystery, and before me was a main road and, distantly, the Brunswick Executive Airport. There was something strangely familiar about the fifteen-foot stretch of dry grass between the woods and the barbed-wire airport perimeter. The shrubbery looked exhausted. Suddenly, the walk back felt incredibly long, though it had only taken me about twenty minutes to get there from Osher Hall. Bittersweet vines struggled to climb the fencing. I pitied them. Didn’t they see that there was nothing on the other side?

Sometimes I worry: Am I blind in this way? If college is just a long, four-year transitional period, can I find order and sustenance or will I simply shrivel up and die like the bittersweet vines, grasping at nothing?

The term “liminal space” has come up repeatedly in my Slavic Demonology course. Our readings constantly reference these in-between places—thresholds of doorways, staircases and times like twilight—which are so caught between two states of being that they cannot truly be described as either. In myth, they are filled with monsters, because these lawless areas are the only places they can move freely. Liminal spaces exist outside of the bounds of the known and contain many multitudes of mysticism. Yet it is human tendency to define the organic and natural with strict guidelines and borders, resulting in choppy, uncomfortable transitions.

There is power in liminal spaces precisely because they are between two distinct destinations. It is human nature to feel uncomfortable here. In college, with my childhood behind me and my adulthood ahead, I have felt stretched between two worlds, one foot ready to move forward, and the other reluctant to leave the past behind. It sometimes still feels like every little choice I make will drastically alter my future. It’s a lot of pressure. I encourage people to walk the Brunswick Landing Perimeter Trail, at least until this spot, because it puts things in perspective. Cars were racing by, and planes were taking off, but I had nowhere to be. Where I stood, it was quiet. I could breathe.

While not completely convinced by Ralph Waldo Emerson that “it’s not the destination, it’s the journey,” I have a newfound respect for these in-between periods. Their “lawlessness” means that I am not confined by as many limitations. Viewing college as a liminal space has given me freedom to move around and explore the many opportunities being given to me without feeling rushed. It’s still scary to not know what’s coming. The image of the withered bittersweet vines keeps resurfacing. But I’m trying my hardest to plant both feet beneath me and take a breath. The world isn’t going anywhere.

Delia Tomkus is a member of the Class of 2030.