We call it November. The months go in order so that is how time passes. October, November, December. But does anyone else get a weird feeling in November? You can feel in in the atmosphere, in school, and even the political election.

It is too cold to be autumn. It is too warm to be winter.

It is not Halloween anymore, but it is too early to celebrate Christmas. Besides Thanksgiving, do you remember anything about November?

November is a liminal time. Liminal means a transitional process. The changing of one state to another. It is more than a definition. It is a distinct feeling.

I can explain liminal time by explaining liminal places. It is the odd, unsettling feeling that accompanies you when you are at a deserted rest stop on the side of the interstate or entering an empty grocery store at night with no employees in sight. It when you are hurrying down the dimly lit maintenance hall in malls to find the bathroom and driving on an empty street in the middle of the night that is usually busy.

Liminal places are like transient bridges connecting a here and a there. They are never meant to be stayed in for long. It is a place to pass through to get to somewhere else and nothing more. They are a transitional threshold.

A liminal time is similar. It is like twilight, a time between day and night. It has the same odd feeling. The same quick passing of time. An otherworldly feeling when you try to remember.

November is a liminal time. It is the transition of seasons from fall to winter, warm to cold. You can’t go back to October because time is ticking, the earth is spinning, and life goes on, but you can’t fast forward to December because nature’s changing is a process. So you are stuck in November.

This odd limbo month where there is not much to do or celebrate occurs because society has commercialized seasons and made holidays extreme.

The entire month of October is Halloween. There are spooky decorations, pumpkin spiced foods, apples, colorful leaves, costumes, and bonfires.

The entire month of December is the holiday season with presents, peppermint and chocolate, cheer, colorful lights, ugly sweaters, and snow.

So what is left for November, the humdrum month sandwiched in between two fun months? Not much until you reach the holiday season toward the end of the month. The curious feeling will stay until Thanksgiving arrives. The atmosphere will stay strangely charged with something no one can quite explain but everyone feels.

November is a liminal time for college students too. We are past midterms so we have crossed that mark, but we have not reached finals week yet. We are not in the final stretch of the semester, so it is like we are passively floating through time because there is nothing else to do but survive. We are in a slump period. Only as time drags on will the odd feeling go away. Only then can we start worrying about finals and start thriving for the holiday season.

The political election even signifies a liminal time. It is the transitional mark of a changing of political office, and I daresay an uneasy feeling accompanies us all. This is a transitional time of the past and an uncertain future.

Even though anything liminal is deeply weird and slightly unsettling, there is something positive about it all. It signals a change which provides hope for something new, a journey toward something better in the future compared to the now.