Sense of Place

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I really resonated with Seph Lawless’ work. I felt that viewing his striking and poignant work as an introduction to the course stuck with me throughout it and coloured my lense with which I took everything else in. There was something ominous about his work that I loved and couldn’t get enough of.

I felt a similar eerie, incandescent and yet intangible quality in Coppola’s Lost in Translation. The cadence, the delivery, the starkness, the energy that was given off. Such vague words I’m using but, that is the quality of it: the vagueness.  

After viewing the film and after reading Hunter’s blog, I was able to include the idea of belonging and finding one’s own sense of belonging as a part of the concept of ‘sense of place’. When the course began, I hadn’t thought to include that in my definition of a ‘sense of place’. I even mentioned it when we spoke on travel, saying something along the lines of how I travel to take in the scenery but don’t give too much thought to the culture beyond that it is different and interesting. I’d say I enjoy both but the scenery draws me in. Anyway, what I mean to say is that I wasn’t thinking of the big picture, but just my more narrow definition of sense of place as the more ephemeral and romantic take that what it hinges upon is the energy, the feng shui, the chi, the vibe, the flow. I love this format because, like Lauren said, it is comprised almost entirely of all the different perspectives of some very unique people.

An awareness of place is so important for many reasons. I think humans inherently want to categorize and often compartmentalize but I also think that there is an intrinsic and biological desire to belong. Belonging means survival, it is self preservation to feel a sense of belonging and to feel a sense of place. Some people, and I’d hazard to say most, enjoy feeling a community or a sense of camaraderie, of distinction and kinship and intimacy with their place. 

People feel most comfortable when things are defined, so they actively attempt to define the vague and ephemeral sense of place through art and work and love and home and life and living. This is beautiful, is part of the indomitable human spirit, and will live on like a legacy through humans and the world we inhabit. 

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I have been a lot of people, in a lot of different places. 

Some of these photos are of me and people that I love. Some of these photos are photoshop netart that I made. Some of these photos (the sharks) are of me and my mother on mount Greylock creating a performance art piece. 

Some of these photos are of me and other people, creating mothers, in important places.

My old room, my old house, my friends homes, beautiful places I have been to visit beautiful people.

These span years. I am a sentimentalist. I keep things, if I knew how to scan, you would see the photographic world I have of memories of friends of family of strangers and acquaintances and lovers and roommates and fading away used to know them back sometime somebodies...

Some are of my grandparents, of the home they cultivate, of their souls they cultivate.

This is my sense of place.

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Shenandoah Valley, Virginia

Once you reach Maryland, the foliage has changed. I’ve been going to Bethesda, Maryland once a year for all my life to visit my mom’s best friend, Tara, her husband, Jeff, and eventually, their daughter, Elea. I’m very familiar with Maryland, but have yet to ever visit Virginia. About a week ago, I went on a trip with my mom and the aforementioned ladies. 

Driving south from Maryland, the leaves look different, the trees are thicker and more jungle-like, the leaves are spade shaped and a brilliant jade green. The roads are thinner, snaking past giant farmland and lush vineyards, large fields with small farmhouses in the center. I love the silos, horses and cows dotting the fields adjacent to them. Although I had never been here, I recognized the terrain. Similar to Quebec and Scotland, parts of Vermont. But, again, such different foliage. Creeping vines everywhere, wild flowers flourishing in fields and along dirt roads, highways but two lanes wide with corn and wheat rushing by. Quarries and brooks and dilapidated buildings, gas stations with off brand names and off brand candy and personalized pocket knives and hot dogs and nachos and slushees. 

Once we reached Skyline drive in the Shenandoah Valley Park, we began to drive up a mountain. All along the way we saw bucks and fat squirrels, large birds. Finally, after speeding past the widening view of the rolling, sprawling lush and forested dank and deep green hills, we came across three separate baby bears. They loped along, grabbing at weeds and grasses to eat. They were so unbothered by us, and yet they did not approach us.

The bears were certainly the highlight of the trip, but the entire terrain and drive were incredibly beautiful and I have plans to go back!

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This is a tiny painting I did over the weekend at a family party. My grandmother is an artist so I set up a painting table for everyone to join in on. This painting is partly of the cape, partly of Ireland, partly of Maine. The water is one place that I will never cease to love.

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My grandparents used to own a house on a river in New Ipswich New Hampshire. My grandma is an artist and she had a small little cottage studio on the property. The home was a large, first white and then yellow, colonial with a front porch, back patio, and eventually a screened in porch off their bedroom. 

There was a garage that you entered through, then into a mud room, finally stepping into the entrance which served as a living room, dining room, and foyer. There was usually a fire going, or so it seemed since it was always Christmas when we got there. The best part about New Hampshire was that even when there was no snow on the ground in MA, there would always be a white Christmas up there. 

When I walked into that foyer I was usually greeted by a kiss on the forehead from my Grandpa and his scratchy mustache, a leg-lick from Daisy the cocker spaniel, or various baby relatives crawling on the rug that looked like a scenic landscape. This rug lay over the glazed terra-cotta flooring tiles that were HEATED (YES, I SAID HEATED) from underneath. To the left was the glorious kitchen. The island was as big as two doors on top of each other with another sawed in half and stacked the same. With six barstools on one side and a built in stove top on the other. The counter top itself, having been installed while my grandparents were moving in, had two or three paw imprints in the set clay. Legend tells that a puppy was present during the move and work being done and had ran across the surface while the clay was still wet. I would jam my tiny hands into the smooth dips in the counter until they no longer fit.

Through the house and up the stairs into the attic, there were four rooms for their four children and their children’s children (me). The attic was also dubbed the play room. It held so many treasures, it was like going to the toy store except it always stayed there but you could also play with it. There was a dollhouse with all the little plates and a movable staircase, a trunk full of wigs and hats and boas and 80′s prom dresses and long silk or lace gloves, stuffed animals lurking in every corner, dolls and books and bins full of sand and pales and shovels, there were paints and crayons and paper and easels and canvases, things that sung when you pulled string. And the itchiest scratchiest rugs ever known to man.

Somewhere between 2 to 4 years ago, they had to sell that house, and probably a lot of the things in it. It hurt like I was losing a person. It was buried in me deeper than I knew.

I wrote this all with a lump in my throat. 

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Ireland

There is a sleepy little town on the western inlet in the middle of the country of Ireland called Connemara; with rolling hills, dipping in and out of each other like little piles of flower on the counters during the holidays. Amongst the glowing green hills are calm and reflective pools that glisten as if they were painted sky on silken cloth. Most days are cool, thick with fog and mist. Your feet squish into the earth, the smell of moss flooding your nose.

If you’re driving Cliffden Rd. East, following the creases and folds of the land that follow the snaking estuaries along the stone riddled beaches...eventually you will come to a beautiful little rectangle of pebbles and sand right over a short stone wall. To the left of this beachy area is a two or three story cottage home. It boasts a beautiful back yard, including water access and spectacular views. 

Later, you will learn this house is for sale. Always, you will wish to buy it. Will it ever meet you again? Will you ever hang clothes on the eastern line at first light? Will you ever paddle out into the Galway sound to fish or enjoy the tranquility?

On a hill once, in Dingle, overlooking the township and the ocean, you sat with the wildflowers as tall as you and sang in your head. You were filled with wind like a blustery sail, speeding forward, not just sale but also the figurehead. You made yourself a lot of teenage promises in Ireland that you don’t intend to keep. But maybe someday, in some world, where wealth was no object and you were braver than you know yourself to be, you’d get there.

Cliffden Manor is always waiting for you. Castlemagner and Galway too. ‘Don’t forget us,’ they whisper, ‘Don’t forget our touch, like a lover’s caress, or the way the wind snaps at your hair. Don’t forget the constant fog and overwhelming green that turns a smile on your serene Celtic face”. 

Like I would ever forget you, Connemara. As if.

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Winter Street in Holliston. On one side, just after a curve, I lived in a big green house with a sloped back yard and a brook running down the side. We would walk through the woods from the backyard trail, underneath trees with hunter’s nests, up the crest of the small hill until reaching the clearing. When you exit the trail, you’re in the Highland apple orchard,

If you walked down the street in the opposite direction, down the weird road that looks like the real continuation of Winter but is actually a dead end; if you walk down the road til you hit the chain-fence, you can step right over it and follow the wooded path through to Mellen street. Mellen has many private homes. Interesting people, lots of money. If you walk to the end of Mellen, you’ll be facing the High School.

If you’re in a car and you’re 17 and you’re music is loud and the fall air is crisp and the windows are down; the sun is going down but it hasn’t quite set and maybe its not the weekend but theres nothing really going on...

You turn on to Winter, pass the white farmhouse on your right, with the addition in the back where their children now live with their own children, you squeeze between the thick rock walls on either side, that come right before the house with the newfoundland dog, then you accelerate into the turn, you whip it around the sharp curve, passing that weird brown house thats too close to the road and doesn’t have a yard, on your left is the red house thats shrouded in trellis and vine, its shaped like it has an atrium and the teenage girl who lives there is sort of pretty and very mean, the road straightens out, you’ve passed the entrance to the Queens, and you’re going up a small hill, you slow down, taking in the sight of the tiered and box-shaped red modern cabin, with the long tall steep driveway, now rounding the third to last corner, you swing the wheel and careen in the shady street, passing Olena’s house, kids would say she was a witch long before they said I was, right across from the Zeamer’s vineyard, and then you snap that second to last turn, Mellen to your left this time, rounding the corner like you’re drawing it on the map, fast and precise and a little careless. You fly, wind in your teenage hair, feet hovering above the pedals, grin on your face. Touch down, one more delicate tip to the left, turn onto Bald Hill, immediately take a right and turn the key towards you: ignition off, child: home, thrill: had.

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Rituals, Relationships, Restrictions.

What are the daily rituals that shape your experience?  

  Brush teeth, wash face, moisturize, sun protect, brush hair, cook food, drink    caffeine, explore the mountains, rivers, streams, forests, beaches, parks of   New England, visit local farms and shop at local markets and food stores,   work at cafe waitressing job, swim at the Ashland reservoir, walk the Wellesley   Women’s College lake loop, drive to Hopkinton State Park, drive to Horseneck   Beach, drive to the movie theatre in Framingham/Natick, watch the baby cows   run across the street from my mom’s house, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera...

What relationships are meaningful to you on a day-to-day basis - Selasi calls them "the people who shape your weekly emotional experience."  

  I live with my mom, I see a rotation of two or three close friends on a daily   basis, I spend a lot of time with my boss, I see certain customers once or   twice daily, I see certain town-folk once or twice daily, I speak on the phone,   for long lengths of time (like 5 hours sometimes) with my best friend who   moved to New York, I text with another close friend who moved to Colorado.   There are cashiers in certain stores around the area that I know from high   school, or from frequent trips in, nice waitresses or crossing guards, people   who walk their dogs in the neighborhood...

What restrictions do you encounter - what limitations might you feel by where you live?  Use this framework to write your way to your own "local" place.

  I am restricted geographically because of a lack of funds. I work, but not   enough, I make not enough, and I go to school. There are not many other   restrictions that don’t fall under the first.

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TOP 10 Spiritual Places with The Strongest Energy Field

There are places in the world, where you can feel the connection with the divine – one of them Rila’s Lakes, known for strong energy field. Where sensitive people dream strange things, after spending the night there. Such type of places could give you answers to a long asked questions and make you feel the energy concentrated on a more spiritual level. Here are Ten Spiritual Places With The Strongest Energy Field: 1. Rila – Bulgaria Some might seem surprised, but this mountain range is one of the energy centers of the world. Not accidentally, one of the greatest spiritual masters of the

This is a list of the top ten spiritual places with strongest energy fields in the world. I linked us to this list because I want to make a point and draw a parallel between the theory of spiritual energy, prana, and a quality that Cresswell is trying to describe throughout his article. Cresswell makes a distinction between space and place, and thus begins his writings that center mostly around the cultivation and journey of a place. I found it to relate to the idea of lingering energy, of filling places and spaces with that energy, and tapping into our own prana to evoke elements of personal style, feng shui, and mimicking energetic fields that are present and subconsciously recognized.

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This is a video I took earlier today of my home garden! I have recently gotten more into plants and gardening. I had a rosemary plant, basil, three kinds of mint, and thyme but they unfortunately all were killed by over watering and over exposure to sun while I was away!!! They were young and I will probably get more soon.

Down the street from my neighborhood is a garden center. They’re my main spot for acquiring new plants. Very helpful family business, beautiful greenhouse grounds, a frequent buyer rewards program, and local part time garden tenders from 16 to 60. 

Today my mom took me to a farm, Tangerini’s Spring Street Farm, in Millis, Ma. They have delicious lunch offerings, huge ice cream cones, pick your own blueberries and wildflowers, a farm store with fresh produce and local wares/baked goods, chickens, goats, a farm cat, and many plants for sale. IT. WAS. HEAVEN. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I have plans to cultivate more flower and food gardens all around my yard.

I love the idea of making a space your own with plants and food gardens. There are so many functional and medicinal plants, not to mention edible plants, in your own back yard. I often forage around the New England area. There are many different kind of safe non poisonous and non psychedelic mushrooms, nuts and seeds, berries (like the raspberry patch on the sunny corner of my yard). 

I think that gardening and growing a community with a garden is one of the most radical and important things we can do as humans.

One last thing I’ll mention is my love for functional planting like tall trees and bushes as a natural fence, trellis of vines to create shady outdoor porches, a sunflower maze, bonsai furniture (YOU’RE GONNA WANT TO LOOK THAT UP), etcetera onto infinity.

I hope to explore the many avenues that plants can bring me.