Akira: From Parkland to Pangrati

I am liminal. A being half between statuses, ideas, identities, cultures; worlds.

In his book Rites de Passage, Arnold van Gennep outlines a three-tiered sequence that marks the universal phases of a rite of passage experience. The sequence is as follows: pre-liminality, liminality, and post-liminality. Though I am not exactly enmeshed in a culture-wide ritual common to all who attain adulthood, I do believe I am walking van Gennep's path of liminality; I am in the middle of my own personal rite of passage tale. I have a master of ceremonies and my current life is following a prescribed daily routine, of which my small group knows the details and is expected to follow.

Liminal, from the Latin word meaning threshold, is the state of being in-between. Liminal beings are both categorized and without categorization. They are half one thing and half another, without truly belonging to either. It is an intermediate state, between here and there. Betwixt. Transitional.

I am between cultures. I was bred American and will spend three weeks thrust into a civilization in which I am the foreigner. I am not in the American melting pot of accommodation. I know a handful of Greek words while most around me know a handful of English. Our accents confuse one another. We stumble over greetings and communicate through facial cues. The phrases I do know are situational and have no definition. I don't remember what they mean, just when they must occur. I am between languages, between who I am and who I need to be while wandering in Greece.

I am not surrounded by my usual markers of identification. No family, no nik-naks, no significant other to define me. The blankness of my person is as stark as the walls of the apartment I keep. I am only how I respond. My body is neither here nor there. My desires are stunted and ever-shifting. I cannot connect with my former life for lack of a computer and cannot connect with this culture for lack of understanding, time, and confidence. I follow a path I can hardly see. I am simply moving through the ritual, unpainted and unspecific as clay on the wheel.

With my current liminality, I attain a balance of new power and weakness. I am weak as a fresh shoot. Lonely as a dying leaf. Empty and colorless and unformed in this world too far away from one where I was once so tall. But, the in-between can find the greatest power. Upon her return to her society, she can attain a new and incredible role while maintaining the knowledge of her past incarnation. The rite of passage is not simply forgotten, but integrated into the greater experience of said liminal being's life; left to influence the course of her days as long as she cares to remember the great burden of liminality.

I am 10 days in.

17 days remain.

What will I do with my liminality and the possibilities therein?

As of this moment, the liminality has crept into my thinking and I am torn. I do what I must and push myself, here and there, for more. I am half between dreaming and waking, pain and pleasure, contentment and sorrow. Precarious, I balance between emotions; physical locations; and intersecting spheres of comfort and discomfort. I stand with my heart and hopes and happiness in America and my physical body and waking mind in Greece.

How do I amend the gap and benefit in little more than two weeks?

How do I embrace my liminality?

How will I, ultimately, make meaning of my liminal experiences in the end?

Will I truly ascend to post-liminality or will the rite of passage fail?

What does it mean if I succeed?

What does it mean if I don't?