Void

 

The void between Christmas and new years is like a tunnel of time that doesn’t exist. A liminal area, between breaths, between one event and the next. It’s not exactly that though, it's an offbeat staccato in the rhythm of the western world. Christmas is already over, the big event people can take months to prepare for, hanukkah, kwanza… also festival yuletide celebrations end around this time and then… nothing. Until the new year. You can’t really start anything because there really isn’t enough time, there’s preparing for new years but most likely that’s already been lumped in with christmas and other holiday planning. 

Many schools have winter break around this time and many people are preparing for the next year, but this time which isn’t quite the turning of one year into the next, it’s a strange liminal space of time that kind of doesn’t exist except it sort of has to for continuity. It’s kind of depressing I suppose but not even really that, it’s just void, it’s just space with nothing in it. Maybe most lives are like that, space with lots of nothing in it. Just one meager journey to the next. Just void, nothingness. Empty, cold, is the void cold or is it warm? From a thermodynamics perspective the void is incredibly cold given the density of particles for a given volume decreases the average molecular energy. 

There’s not a lot moving around during this time. It’s like when you're speaking and thinking, what do I do with my hands? Apparently some people wave them around, or keep them stuck and their sides, or awkwardly move them with no real reason. That’s kind of the feeling of the space of time that is between Christmas and New Years. What do you do with your hands when they are not necessary? It’s I suppose a little boring but also not in some ways. 

By the time New Years rolls around it’ll be as if this strange space of time hadn’t ever existed. It’s important to consider these types of liminal spaces in the context of larger events, as they provide the space and void that allows for the true wholeness of time. Sometimes the outline or something greater can be pictured off the effect it has on the space around it.