It’s a truism that we live in liminal times. Well, everybody always has, right? Time isn’t a constant, and everything is constantly changing. But the present moment offers a perception of liminality that’s unrivalled in my lifetime, at least.

Last night I listened to a radio program discussing the difficulties the régime has put in place for international students to be given visas for study in the US. Because, of course. They’re foreign. They’re taking the place of real Americans. (Um, actually, no: these are mostly graduate students in STEM areas of study, paying full tuition that enables American citizen students to get grants. But hey, go ahead, shoot yourself in the foot another time.)

The régime has also been playing with tariffs, not just demonstrating the president’s complete lack of understanding of how the economy works, but also putting world markets in an untenable position. Inflation is rising, and Americans are putting off major purchases, vacations, and more, not knowing what will happen next.

I live in a land bounded by one of the federal parks, the National Seashore, and worry every day that the developers who for decades have tried to encroach on protected lands are finding a ready ear in the White House.

I could go on, but there’s no sense in it: If you’re with me this far, then you can think of half a dozen more examples of the régime’s plan to induce chaos into the everyday lives of ordinary people.

Like many of us, I am refraining from spending any money on anything I absolutely don’t require—though I have upped my donations as a kind of fiscal agency when there’s nothing else. But I’m also looking at planning, at wondering about the future. When I finish my current novel, what next? What will the world be like when this one comes out? And the next one? How can I speak to a time that’s so clearly in turmoil?

I can only imagine how others who must engage now in long-term planning—deciding to get married, to have a child, to go to school, to take a new job—are dealing with the uncertainty of our times.

That’s the liminality thing. The feeling of being not completely in one space or another. The feeling of being in that moment between one breath and the next. The sense of being suspended, like motes of dust in the air, illuminated by a sudden shaft of light that leaves you blinking—where do we place our dreams, our hopes, our futures? How do we not succumb to living on the verge of something yet to happen, towering over us like a tsunami about to strike? How can we make a liminal space our home?

Many of us cannot. We turn to alcohol, or senseless sex, or running until the sweat devours our bodies. Or to suicide. Death seems dark and mysterious and comforting when life feels like the razor’s edge of probable disaster.

I don’t know how to live on the borderline between what was and what will be, in the current shadow world of secrets and lies and abominations. I seek out the legacy of others—writers, architects, artists, thinkers—who lived in fascist times, thinking, there has to be a roadmap here somewhere.

There is no map. Or, if there is one, it ends with a warning: beyond this be dragons.

Beyond this be dragons

Just a Frivolous Interview

Know Them Before You Break Them