rumination #8

Dear Thesis,

Today was a beautiful day. I slept until 1 PM by accident, so unfortunately I missed half of its beauty. But I was determined to make the most of it, so I took a bath and sat outside for a spell wearing only a light sweater, and read an article in The Sun - actually, I read the article in both suns, the star and the magazine! -  titled "Why I Am Not Going to Buy A Computer". Then, with my face turned up toward the sun - the star, not the magazine - and my eyes shut tight, I listened to the sounds of the birds returning for spring, the creek behind my house, the wind in the evergreens, and the noise of the cars passing by on the street. Have you ever noticed how the distant passing of cars sounds just like waves crashing and receding on the beach? I had never noticed that before.

I think I have a somewhat untraditional sense of place. To me, place is not a static thing. It is dynamic, fluid. I, myself, am not stationary, both literally and metaphorically speaking, so I perceive my surrounding environment as constantly changing due to my movement through it and my continuously shifting perspective of it. Perhaps this is why I love to make large-scale sculpture, because of its ability to provide its viewer with multiple perspectives, and therefore multiple experiences. Sculpture resides in real time and space, and therefore, in a certain sense, can become its own kind of place.

According to the dictionary on my computer, 'home' has many definitions, the first being "the place where one lives permanently". That sentence is absurd to me. Why would anyone live anywhere - or for that matter do anything - permanently? The very idea of permanence makes me cringe. Nothing in the natural world is permanent; everything is constantly, ever-so-slightly changing. But people crave permanence, and are always trying to fabricate it in their lives in one form or another. It's like playing pretend! Why do we do that, I wonder? Is it because, in order to live, we need to pretend we're not going to die?

My favorite definition of 'home' is the one listed towards the bottom, which is "a place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates." That's the kind of place I want to live in (but still not permanently).

Yours truly,

Alicia