Desire lines and liminal spaces…and seeing differently
One of the greatest joys of my life is the enormously deep and rich and loving community I have found in writing 37days.
From the very beginning, amazing people started coming here and teaching me things, telling me their stories, so much so that the recent Life is a Verb retreat felt like a reunion instead of like a group of people meeting for the first time.
One of the women who has arrived on these blog shores and whom I’ve never-met-but-feel-like-I-have is Sarah Morgan who this week has graciously offered her review of Life is a Verb.
The spaces and photographs and typography of her blog make me want to live there as do her discussions of faking it and how making pictures makes you see differently, and much more.
In addition to her too-generous words about me, I love two concepts she has highlighted:
Each essay sums itself up with a wonderful little title that describes the main point. I catch myself using them to myself now in my mental shorthand. Here are a couple of the glorious phrases I’ve learned:
- “liminal spaces“: the concept of the in-betweens. The moment that you realize someone’s about to say something that will change your life forever. When you’re on the threshold. How we should look out for those moments, and how to honor them when they’re happening.
- “desire lines“: the shortcuts that aren’t on the map. What people do that isn’t in the instruction manual. That that’s okay – and that we should put aside the directions we worked so hard on (our “toast rules” ) when they just don’t work as well as the desire lines do.
I love the little side note on her blog, which I just saw: "I just got my copy of Patti Digh’s Life Is a Verb. Expect my review when I finish it. Expect copies of it for Christmas. Expect it to change your life."
My thanks, Sarah, for your beautiful words. I’m glad you have found meaning here.
[photo from Sarah’s blog]
