august is liminal
Slowly adding to my collection of online reads, penned by people I actually know. Rec your blog and/or newsletter: http://bit.ly/addvoid
Manila, 2 August—August already, huh? This year has had this overall sense of Where the hell did that go? all over it. And frankly, I’m relying on these weekly writing deliverables to keep grasp of time—what did we do when? We’ve been homebound since mid-March, and the days have been the same, despite best efforts to make every day different from the one that came before.
A word I’d likely use for this year would be liminal. Technically, its Latin source limens means threshold, and to be in a liminal space is to be in an in-between. I think there’s an irony to this, thinking about 2020 as a threshold, when for many it has meant stepping back from doors and keeping them shut.
Life’s general pointlessness has more or less been ramped up this week, as the government continues to bungle its COVID-19 response, relaxing quarantine measures despite the increase in cases and closure of hospitals due to overwhelm.
On Saturday morning, 80 groups representing 80,000 doctors and millions of nurses appealed for tighter COVID-19 controls, particularly in NCR, amid the collapsing healthcare system in the capital. [READ: ‘Losing battle’: Philippine doctors, nurses urge new COVID-19 lockdowns as infections surge via Reuters]
Instead, the President has trained his eyes on his latest money-making venture, has revived talk about reinstating the death penalty and has encouraged the use of gasoline to disinfect masks. [READ: Rodrigo Duterte: ‘I’m not joking - clean masks with petrol’ via BBC News]
This is definitely a far-cry from the Vice President’s very sober COVID-related speech on Wednesday, which details her recommendations on how to improve the country’s COVID response. [FULL TEXT: Vice President Leni Robredo’s Report, Suggestions And Message Of Hope Amid The Pandemic via ONE News PH]
I can’t believe that, for all the czars that have been named in the middle of this pandemic, the one who has actively been excluded from all that planning is making the most sense. Well, scratch that—I actually do believe it. There’s something else that’s obviously infectious in Malacañang—and it’s not just COVID-19. Whatever it is, I hope relatively untested, first-generation COVID-19 vaccine from China will fix it.
anyway—liminality.
I’ve been chiding myself because I am unable to write untethered to anything current. This is an old, unshakeable habit, probably from years of journalism; nothing really matters unless it’s at the moment, and well, in recent years, this obsession with virality and being first-to-market in the digital space has shaped, for better or for worse, my relationship with publishing on the internet.
My problem about writing while being overly tethered to the current is that likely, nothing about it lasts. Double-edged sword, both liberating and frustrating.
In a way, all of my writing is liminal—they’re neither here nor there. Sure, they’re informative, insofar as snapshots go, but in the greater scheme of things, just an array of events that would be collectively forgotten in time. I mean, isn’t that what news is? Just a string of events that people keep forgetting, and isn’t this why history repeats itself, in the first place?
Anyway, being quarantined for so long has meant I’ve had a lot of time to spend thinking about writing, about its place in the general scheme of things—it does feel like we’re living in a kind of end-of-times era, where something irreversible is happening, and there’s this lingering feeling that something great has to come out of this.
Some days are like that—like my insides are being chewed on by some niggling feeling to optimize myself, my processes, my outputs. Some other days, I can do little else but join the general population in a collective effort not to fucking lose our minds. Or ourselves, as a minimum requirement.
It feels like being stuck in the most unfortunate intersection of feeling inadequate, feeling like we have done nothing, and feeling absolutely depleted and exhausted.
But like most in-betweens—maybe it’s just liminal space. Maybe something will come out of this nothing. Maybe we’re standing on the threshold, about to step out.
Media rec
As a last note, I leave you with my favorite track off Taylor Swift’s new release, folklore:
Of course.
I’ve always thought that Taylor’s a good storyteller, and it’s actually kind of hard to choose a favorite off folklore, but I guess if I had to choose one, it would be this, because it’s appropriate for this entry, at least.
Also, my favorite imagery is twisted bedsheets, executed in this line: and i can see us twisted in bedsheets / august sipped away / like a bottle of wine.
Almost like dancing in refrigerator lights. Pwede na.
Anyway, here’s Brie Larson’s short cover of ‘the 1’ that actually has us swooning.
What a face. You should follow her YouTube channel.
Anyway—thank you for making it this far. Take care.
Xo,
K