Secret Spaces, Hidden Places – Sofie Couch

Liminal Spaces in Storytelling

That title sounds grandiose and academicky. (The word, “academicky” will cure you of that delusion.) This is one of those things I had to look up.

According to Merriam-Webster, a liminal space is “of or relating to, or situated at a sensory threshold…”

I had a vague impression of the meaning, but apparently, it’s a thing in popular culture, rather, it’s a popular device used in the gamer world. The very nature of a liminal space both lures and cautions against entering. It’s Joseph Campbell’s “crossing the threshold” to adventure, consisting of both promise and danger. Liminal spaces are a time capsule, forgotten, neglected, abandoned places. Why?

My life is driven by story. Story, story, story. It infects everything that I do. I appreciate that oral storytelling is the great-grandmother of story, with written stories coming in second, but I LOVE the myriad venues that take advantage of setting as experienced by all of the senses. Storytelling can be delivered through art, movies… computer games. Games filled with those liminal spaces have become a powerhouse of storytelling.

What is it about those liminal places that draw one in? The game in question, the one my adult, artist/gamer son was watching, flipping back and forth between recorded gameplay and the made-for-TV recreation was THE LAST OF US.

Set in a post-pandemic (sound familiar?) world tragically overrun with people transformed into zombies as a result of their infection, the premise of the story is that one person, a young girl, has been identified as immune and has to be transported safely through zombie, post-apocalyptic ridden landscape to find an intellectual community who might be able to create a vaccine. Obstacles include, in addition to the zombie hoard, gangs of raiders, pockets of civilized communities that operate under wild-west-style governments, and the constant need to acquire resources to make the trip.

At least, that’s what I thought. My son pointed out that it’s about the relationship between the girl and her guide/father figure. WHAT? He’s right, of course. What I described is the external goal and the obstacles. He described the internal goal of the work. The space, the setting, and the need to get the main character safely through rough terrain – through those liminal spaces – that’s external goal and conflict. The need to learn to trust, and rely on someone else, have it called into question? That’s an internal goal and conflict dependent upon those liminal spaces.

The liminal spaces are important. They are a catalyst for both internal and external goals and conflicts. They’re also pretty cool and creepy.

I overheard my son talking to a friend one time. He was saying, “yeah, I don’t like reading novels. It’s a real heartbreak for my mom.” 😊 That kid cracks me up. I haven’t the heart to tell my son that he just might be a storyteller. He just uses a different medium… fraught with liminal spaces.

A delivery van pulls into the drive. The driver leaves a large box on your stoop. You take it inside, remove the packaging, and inside is another box, with no identifying marks, no seams, and seemingly no means of opening it. It’s a Puzzle Box!

That’s how the movie, GLASS ONION, begins.

I just love a good ol’ “who/howdunnit” but life is pretty unerringly dull in my world. So just to add spice, I try to build a world, a set, in which these sorts of adventures could happen.

I think I was inspired by my grandparents’ house. Theirs was a small craftsman that looks, inside and out, pretty modest. Center entry into a living room, bedroom 1 on the left. Doorway into the kitchen with bedroom 2 on the left. But between the kitchen and that bedroom was a small door that led to stairs to the attic – a big attic. Under those stairs was a closet/passage that connected both bedrooms. To a small child discovering this while looking for Christmas presents, it was a gothic castle!

Maybe when I’m dead and gone, my family will be mildly entertained by the many little secrets and cubbies I’ve managed to create and install – some of which they know about, some they may find later… or not. Those of us who were born in the computer game era will know them as “easter eggs”. Those are the little surprises you find when you shift your focus and see a thing from a different perspective.

Thus, today, I’m sharing just a couple of my “secret spaces/hidden places.” You may have seen in some of the earlier, mid-renovation pictures of my library that I have/had a secret bookshelf door. Well, It’s about to be past tense. The one I have turns out to be very inconvenient for things like egress/aggress. Not my intention.

My favorite hidey holes are my puzzle boxes. Okay, they were given to my kids who allowed them to collect dust and never used them. (I found a $20 bill in one of them in a drawer that my daughter forgot about. Yes, I returned her twenty.)

And then, there are the ones that are hidden in plain sight. The book boxes disguise themselves nicely on my now Spartan bookshelves. Yes, I keep very interesting stuff in each of them. Not.

So the next time you’re pondering the notion of someday owning a house with lots of secret passages, like in a toasty mystery, you could pick up a good book and transport yourself, or you could look around your home and think about some of those nooks and crannies that we forget about – the ones you only see when you shift your focus.