With all the reading I've done about symbolic space and the impact of space on the psychology of children, it was fun to find these pictures of me from 1970. Set in the working class cityscape of attached houses, the space between that weighty stoop of my grandparents' home and my parents' apartment four doors away (see the brick stoop) was as cozy a neighborhood as any. It was on this sidewalk where, as a toddler, I ran up the block to greet my grandfather as he walked home from his day at the barber shop. And it was on this stoop I would sit in the sunshine and say hello to all who passed. So happy memories breed happy spaces? Or do happy spaces breed happy memories? I won't say I've tried to recreate or recapture that setting necessarily, though it is one in which I feel inherently at ease. It is the snapshots of our past which shape and inform how we feel about the spaces in which we live. I'd love to hear about other people's childhood spaces--
3 comments:
Wow! Now that's a fancy bag you have there! Love the pose! That's something to think about, Do happy spaces breed happy memories or do happy memories breed happy spaces? In response to that, my feeling is that a happy memory defuses happy feelings of that moment in our past, that we have experiences. Thus, the space becomes a happy place to have experiences that moment! Its when you ran toward your grandfather that made me feel that you were excited to see him, as he was to see you. Its the love of your grandfather that made you happy in that space. I hope that many more moments in any space bring you beautiful memories wherever you may be.
LOVE TINA
aww, you! and how about you? do you have childhood memories of going with your family to Italy? or of course, your mother raising all those girls-- that's a memory about which you could write about-- a poem? At least! love you. N
i mean you could write about your family... one 'about' too many--
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