When my husband and I moved our family from Boston to Stockholm last week, we decided to kick the whole she-bang up a notch by getting ourselves to Europe by boat on the Queen Mary 2. A week-long break between the stress of saying good-bye and hello appealed to us both. As the granddaughter of immigrants who had made their way to Ellis Island decades ago by sea, there was the romantic symmetry of returning to Europe on a boat for me as well.
Mostly though, I looked forward to experiencing the passage of seven days of trans-Atlantic travel, allowing my body to really feel the geographic scope of the experience, allowing it to catch up to the emotional and spiritual journey that my heart and head already knew I was making.
During the decluttering and packing frenzy leading up to “Crossing 2013,” a friend and family member pointed out that the boat ride was the missing element to make our move a true rite of passage.
According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica in the ship’s library (satellite wi-fi being thankfully out of our budget here on the North Atlantic) rites of passage are “ceremonial events, existing in all historically known societies, that mark the passage from one social or religious status to another.”
Weddings, funerals, coming of age ceremonies, graduations – all are rites of passage designed to provide a productive outlet for the stress caused by major life changes. EB went on to say that folklorists and anthropologists break down rites of passage into three phases:
- the preliminal or separation phase,
- the liminal or transition phase, and
- the postliminal or reincorporation phase.
In other words, during this event one is before the threshold, at the threshold, and past the threshold. Anyone who has been on an odyssey knows how significant a threshold is, an invitation and a call to change. Once crossed, there’s no turning back.
Apparently, all that decluttering I was doing back in Boston was the preliminal phase. In this stage, anthropologists note that we cut ties, we give things away, we fast, we mutilate our bodies with a good tattoo, piercing or even a good head shaving, as Britney Spears and the Army know full well. Getting rid of about 90% of my worldly possessions seemed to do the trick just fine, inducing a mental state probably similar to an intense fast or mind-altering substance.
Then comes the limbo, the phase I have been in for the last 2000 or so nautical miles, literally and figuratively. This is the solitary walk in the woods, the 40 days in the desert, the vision quest. It’s the confinement before the birth, the hours during which the bride must remain hidden from her soon-to-be groom. It’s invisibility, it’s in between, it’s the period when the caterpillar becomes cellular goop inside the chrysalis before reorganizing itself into a butterfly. In my case, that means being in between continents, in between jobs, in between communities, in between daily grinds and languages. There is no way to find solid footing here, no Facebook updates, texts or tweets in which to create a narrative to this truly plotless period of floating.
So here I am, in the doorway at the threshold. By the time you read this I’ll have taken the leap into the reincorporation stage, becoming reimbodied in my new role as just-off-the-boat immigrant, ignorant outsider, new hire, new neighbor, novice, beginner, a veritable tabula rasa.
But until then, there are waves to look at and miles to cross. Time to reflect and take in the physical and metaphysical significance of my adventure, to be freaked out by it and then to toast it with a glass of champagne. To all my fellow and future sojourners, seekers and pilgrims at the threshold, I raise my glass—cheers!
“Come, come, whoever you are, wanderers, worshipers, lovers of leaving, ours is no caravan of despair, come, yet again, come!”
— Rumi
You’ve once again wowed me with the beauty and intellect in your writing. I miss you already. I look forward to reading and hearing about your adventures in Sweden.
In many ways I’ll be as close as ever. But it’s not the same!
I’ve thought of you all often the past ten years. I was fascinated to hear of your decision to return to Sweden, but you and Danne had always stayed connected so it was no surprise. I envy your ocean journey, slowing time to appreciate and adjust to the changes. A good reminder to me to lie in the hammock a little longer, to listen to the kids singing in the morning instead of rushing to get ready for work, to refuse to check email until a little later. Miss all of you. Please hug everyone for me.
Oh, Mary Lee, I wish you could see how much he has grown, how much we both have grown. Much of the decision whether or not to move came down to his needs, but in many ways we were finally finding our way navigating the maze. Hopefully we will have more time here to do things like lie in the hammock a little longer. Good reminder!
In my frame for patient experience I think a lot about thresholds: threshold between car and garage, street and clinic, lobby and exam room, hall and procedure room, etc. our job as health care workers is to greet people as they cross the many thresholds and consciously transition. Love hearing about you and yours.
Life is full of transitions like this and it’s helpful to use them as times to stop and reflect. (Hope you’re well–did you start the new gig yet?)
Very beautifully put! It’s a great reminder to spend some time at the threshold- not move beyond it overly quickly . . . thanks.
flavon4you@gmail.com Hello? I don’t know if I’m writing this at the right place, but I searched for “Rumi Stockholm” on Google (just to see if some Rumi-related activities were going on here) and up came this wonderful text “Spending some time at the treshold”. I would really like to get in contact with the writer of this text, is that possible? Would be much appreciated. Thanks and greetings, Annika K, Stockholm