Liminal Space

It turns out that writing a book is not the first thing I’ll do in 2024. The first thing arrives promptly, on 2nd January. It happens amongst the slew of bodies in an everyday, overcrowded, overworked A&E department. It imparts devastating news about a precious loved one. It brings a flurry of all manner of scans and tests, sucks the air from normality and distorts time. We wait for days to pass and wish they were longer. This is not particular to us: we are where all families have been and will be again, so I have no wish to remind others of their pain or dwell on ours, but this is where we are, drifting on an uncertain tide.

My firstborn daughter celebrates a big birthday so, inevitably, I think back to her arrival when she brought sheer joy, utter terror and a fall of snow that seemed to symbolise how greatly my world had changed. Now, as Tom and I look after my daughter’s daughters, someone knocks on our bedroom door in the night and, shortly after, a small figure folds herself into me. ‘Sorry, Nana,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’ ‘You don’t need to be sorry,’ I tell her, stroking her hair ‘It’s horrid when you can’t sleep.’. After a while, I take her back to her own bed. I visit the bathroom and notice my reflection in the mirror is shimmering strangely in the low light. Little Miss, has been to a party, I remember, and her hair glitter is now all over my face!

‘Come on,’ says Tom. ‘We can’t sit around waiting all the time.’ He’s right, of course. It’s too easy to do nothing in between the long road trips which have become our new normal. He suggests a trip to Canolfan y Celfyddydau, the Aberystwyth Arts Centre, where we have lunch, look at the sea and mingle with normal people. We also visit an exhibition, IMPACTArdrawiad, by artist Angharad Pearce Jones. At first, I’m too preoccupied by my own dark thoughts to engage, but gradually these twisted and imploded gates and railings draw me in, striking a chord in me that chimes with the space we’re currently inhabiting, this in-between zone.