As I set up my calendar for the month, I select a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it to capture phrases I hear or read that speak to me and relate to the quote. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For March 2023 the quote was, “I’m hoping to be astonished tomorrow by I don’t know what.”

For many months now, I’ve felt like I’ve been on a precipice of something big. Like there is a massive shift or unfathomable opportunity just beyond my fingertips. It’s as if my being knows it’s there – senses it – but my body cannot see it. Something is patiently waiting for me. I am oddly calm about it. Steadying myself for its arrival. Here are quotes and phrases that that caught my attention as I pause in this liminal time:

• In the universe there are things that are known and things that are unknown – and between them, there are doors
• Your actions are your only true belongings
• Build bridges
• Unrelenting kindness
• Coming into being and passing on
• Laughter is carbonated holiness
• The creator and the creation rely on each other to thrive
• Soul erosion
• Dying with our music still inside us
• Sit in the mess
• What could be
• She wasn’t created to fit in
• Doubt can only be removed by action
• Purpose is a renewable resource
• “But people are oceans,” she shrugged – “you cannot know them by their surface”
• Be in a new frequency
• Honor your feelings
• Age in harmony
• How ever you see yourself as an artist, the frame is to small
• Do no harm, take no shit
• Keep me where the light is
• What’s done is done, what’s not is not, and let us be at peace with both
• Access calm as much as fire

In my intimate conversations over the past few months, I’ve found that many I know are in this liminal time with me. As if we are on a scenic overlook of our life – surveying what has been before we move forward to what is next. For whatever reason, we are not in a hurry to move. The reflective view is satisfying. We can take in life’s pivotal moments with more objectivity, savoring the magic and balancing out the bad.

I think this liminal state gives me the opportunity to settle in… or rather, merge myself. Connect the bold fire of my younger years with the wisdom of a life well lived. It’s a time where I can set down what I’ve carried that I don’t need to anymore, and probably never did to begin with. Simply, time to get intentional on me and how I’ll walk the back half of my life.

I do worry that I’ll wait here to long. The rest is refreshing. The detachment is safe.

I do worry that I’ll remain a cooling ember. That I’ll be lulled by the stillness. That the reignition won’t come.

I do worry that I’ll hesitate. That “fine” will replace “astonishing.” That I’ll miss the jump.

But then I feel the pull. I hear the whisper. I sense the energy.

The next draws near.

I must go and welcome it.