Foundation

I know I haven't stopped posting but it feels like I haven't blogged in days... feels wild. I feel outta sorts, almost like I don't know what to say. But I do have one topic of interest I want to touch upon. It sorta got stirred with a recent post...

Places like people have their own unique character. I'm not talking about anything too grand... I don't mean to bring to mind nations or continents. I'm also not talking about anything particularly small like neighborhoods. I'm really talking about cities, at least, I want to talk about cities because it's certainly the case that neighborhoods, cities, nations and continents all have character.

With cities like these, the ones with character, I often question how they came to be. Getting to know a city is much like getting to know a person, there are all sorts of questions with many answers covering many stories and filled with much history. It's very complex. Cities are as complex as people. In the same way that I feel there's something in the blood with people, I feel there's something in the earth with cities.

I visit a place I've come to know over several years and I begin to deconstruct it. I imagine what it must have been like. I envision the space, not the place... take out the buildings, the streets, the people, the wiring, the plumbing, etc. It's never what it really was 'cause I don't know what it was... it's just my imagination. But I imagine mountains... mountains must have existed here once. There were rivers and streams; forests and deserts. But even that is just place and not space. I speak of this space in the same way that I speak of headspaces and emotional spaces; a kind of energy. I've said it before... but this is really one of those times that I wish I could take people into my head, my mind, because it's there... but only visual. I imagine the whole of the world like a stage... and there are shifting lights dedicated to certain places on Earth; committed and shifting. This light, that energy, dictates any number of things... but we'll stick to the topic at hand: foundations. Unlike people I think cities can't change. It might be a consequence of not being able to move because changing your character might require new lighting, so to speak.

There's just something essential about certain places... intrinsic. These places change in the same ways that we can... the roads come, the people come, the buildings, etc. But that doesn't change what's underneath and in between, those changes are only superficial. I don't think places change. I imagine what happened before is happening now. I imagine the people living here are the people who have always lived here. These places, like people, are like lighthouses... attracting a particular sort. Some people you know live out the same stories over and over again, attracting a certain type. Sometimes it's violent, sometimes it's loving, etc. I think we share an affinity to our cities because they call to us... some part of us, not the whole. I think people can become larger than cities and harbor entire universes. But on the whole I think the people match the place, there's something to that... reflections.

I felt like I was going to go on but I lost the thread... I hate when that happens, it makes me feel like I was just about to happen upon something illuminating. Oh well... there was something about nomads in there for sure. Curse those nomads. :P


DS333, thinking.