Liminal?

These next few weeks feel like the fulcrum between “pre-COVID” and “post-COVID.”

I received my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, February 25. It all happened very fast – I saw on Twitter that Albany County was opening a sign-up portal for the Times Union Center at 5 p.m., and at 5:19 p.m. I had an appointment for 46 hours later.

As I sat down at the table for the jab, I told the person taking my information that I was pretty sure the last time I was in the Times Union Center was for the Elton John concert. I thought it was a year ago, but turns out it was two years ago - March 1, 2019.

So is that what 2020 is going to be like? A disappeared year?

I feel like we’re in a liminal phase. We can begin to think about returning to “normal” – but what will that normal look like?

According to Wikipedia:

In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning “a threshold”) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete. During a rite’s liminal stage, participants “stand at the threshold” between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which completing the rite establishes.

We’re living through a once in a generation - or more - opportunity to examine, assess and prioritize what’s really important to us. None of us who have lived through 2020 will be the same as we were before 2020, but in some ways, that might be a good thing.

Right around the time of that Elton John concert, in March of 2019, I had just launched my new business, CMR Communications, and was taking a Women’s Leadership “boot camp.” One of the exercises was to develop a vision statement for the world I’d like to help create.

In this liminal time, I’m going to renew my efforts to build a community that:
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• Embraces the responsibility to make the world better;
• Discusses with candor – and kindness – the things that hold us back;
• Fosters cooperation in service to community;
• Displays persistence in the face of setbacks;
• Approaches new opportunities with enthusiasm;
• Strives for sustainability in human and natural resources;
• Values expertise and intellectual rigor;
• Encourages mindfulness, and the understanding that even seemingly insignificant decisions can have profound consequences; and
• Seeks to dream bold ideas into being with fearlessness and joy.
  
  

What are you doing with the space between “no longer” and “not yet”?

Drop me a line – let’s make #SmallTalk!