It’s always August where we begin. An archetype: a story on the precipice of being told. In this year’s August, it’s the edge of September, the night before a full moon. I sit on the floor of yet another new roommate’s bedroom, sipping from a glossy can while he hammers together a bed frame. A second roommate—with whom I share a name and without whom I wouldn’t be sitting here, having met her just days before the birthday party—crinkles a bag of snack mix, the sound a backbeat to a conversation we’ll forget until we need to remember. The carpet beneath us is still wet from being shampooed, comforting in its dampness, in the soapy twang in the air. We plan for the year ahead—knickknack shopping, hiking trips, shared playlists. We laugh. At a joke, or at least at the number of times we’ve had this conversation. In other bedrooms. In other homes. It’s always August in the same way that it’s always what comes after. It’s a story in predetermined parts. The exposition unfurls from cars and trailers and airplanes, unreasonable heat, soon-to-be or old friends.
The action rises to the treble-toned Top 100 on the radio, or the twinkle of shaken keys, or the whisper of knitted voices. The story crumbles or climaxes at its unknowns—at its unpredictable weather and accidental goodbyes. The dust settles. The memories sleep easy. It’s always August in the same way it’s never August. An introduction framed by causeless laughter. August is the memoryin-the-making. August is a room in all its unseemly emptiness. In August, there is only the road and the walking, a duffel thumping against the halfheart crescent of your shoulder blade, the sharp lip of a cliff unseen until you’ve already tumbled over the edge. There is no wonder. There is no fear. Like the Fool in tarot, the heart of liminality lies in its fatal flaw: its ignorance. Derived from the Latin limens, the word liminal translates to threshold.
41