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Speaking of love, I am in love with the sections Solnit has written to talk about place and our emotional attachments to it. Ever since Tuesday's class I've been mapping and re-mapping in my mind. That exercise really made me consider the places and spaces in my life--the proximity of some, and also how far I feel from discovering/drawing/knowing the terrain of the places I have not yet been. I feel the way we did when our class started blogging last semester-- like I've just uncovered a way to better process and understand my self, and now I need to do it over and over again.
Solnit I think feels the same way, as she has written a book about her personal geography in order to understand (or help us to understand) our own topographical terrain. This brings me to my favorite passage in the book, which happens right after the quote in the title:
"Thus place, which is always spoken of as though it only counts when you're present, possesses you in its absence, takes on another life as a sense of place, a summoning in the imagination with all the atmospheric effect and association of a powerful emotion," (118).
...the idea that places have a hold on us, and not just vice versa, is what has got a hold of me now. It explains how my summer camp, 10 years later, is still not something I am willing to let go. Perhaps camp has not yet decided to let me go... This changing of agency around place, that we are a part of place and it is a part of us, could really set us free to be lost. If we are not expected to search for ourselves, and if we assume geography is in control, then bring one the terra incognita. What fear would we have left? There would be no stress over directions or plans. We would just fly free and lost, developing our attachments based on what is meant to be attached to us.