old home days or reunions of sentimentality

In 1907, James Ball Naylor wrote a poem entitled "Old Home Week" which read as follows:

PART I

I was sitting in my office, -- far above the busy street
Where the laden barks of business come and go,
Where the rushing streams of traffic swirl and mingle as they meet
And the surging tides of commerce ebb and flow, --
Dimly conscious of full many sounds -- the city's swash and foam,
But unmindful of the import they might bring;
I was pouring o'er a letter from a schoolmate 'way back home --
And drinking from the dipper at the spring!

'Twas a letter from a boyhood friend from whom I hadn't heard,
Till then, in all the fleeting fruitful years;
And the quaint school-day chirography, each smudged or blotted word,
Brought a taste of joy -- with just a tang of tears.
I read, "Dear Jim, we're trying to get up an old-home week,
And make the old place fairly buzz and hum.
The boys and girls all say they're just a-longing for a peek
At your old homely face; so say you'll come."

The load of years slipped from my sagging shoulders, and again
A lad was I back in the old abode;
And I whistled up and down the room as merrily as then
I whistled up and down the country road.
The freighted day became a dream -- a bright dream of the days
When held in thrall by Nature's potent charm
And shackled with the clinging vines of dewy woodland ways,
I knew the mystic rapture of the farm.

And the tumult of the city -- its titanic crash and roar,
And babel of the many tongues men speak --
Sank and softened to the rumble of a wagon rattling o'er
The stony ford of old Bald-eagle creek;
The jangle of the telephone became the drowsy call
Of sheep-bells far within the forest gloom;
And the whir of the electric fan, the rhythmic rise and fall
Of the buzz of bees among the clover bloom.

I could see it -- I could see it all! The home -- the days gone by!
The farmhouse and the honeysuckle sweet;
The cool and darkling woodland -- and the glimpse of sunlit sky
Where the gray and mossy branches failed to meet;
The greenish, glassy shimmer of the spring brook near at hand,
The loop of grapevine where I used to swing,
And myself a careless youngster -- flushed and thirsty, grimed and tanned --
Drinking from the big gourd dipper at the spring.

I could hear the bob-white's whistle in the field of waving grain,
And the robin's cheery lilt within the shade
Of orchard on the hillside; and far down the leafy lane,
The cries of barefoot comrades in the glade.
And my soul a-thirst! -- and I hankered for the dipper at the spring,
My playmates, and the hills we used to roam;
And in fancy I could hear a boyhood chorus softly sing:
"He is coming! He is coming -- coming home!"

I could see my father's rugged form, my mother's wrinkled face --
Ah, the homesick feeling tongue can never tell! --
The vagrant, dusty highway idling past the dear old place,
And the apple-tree on guard beside the well.
I could smell the blue smoke curling o'er the rooftree gray and high,
Could hear the swallows chirping 'neath the comb;
And in my happy heart, in echo, to those swallows made reply:
"I am coming home! I am coming -- coming home!"

PART II

With the gleaming road ahead of me, the teeming town behind,
And my thoughts the wayward fancies of a boy! --
With the rule of gold forgotten and the Golden Rule in mind,
I went speeding toward the loyal land of Joy.
The many miles dropped out of sight, as had the many years
Since I abandoned subjects, crown and throne;
But the blue sky's smile of sunshine and the brown earth's dewdrop tears
Bade me welcome to a kingdom still my own.

I thought to slip into the sleepy village, and depart
For cottage of my boyhood and my birth --
Just to spend one evening worshiping and talking heart to heart
With my parents, at the fondest shrine on earth;
But my friends were at the station, kindly faces all aglow,
With madly waving banners and a band. --
Those grown up lads and lassies of the blissful long-ago!
And the nearest and the dearest took my hand.

Then the band commenced a-playing, and the treble of the fife
And the rumbling, grumbling basso of the drums
Made me laugh as I had seldom laughed in all my busy life
They were playing - "See, the Conq'ring Hero Comes"!
But I looked at the musicians -- understoof their wild acclaim
Of welcome, that was ringing to the skies; [name]
Heard the joyful cheers and outcries that were burdened with mine
And I found the tear drops trickling from my eyes.

There they were to meet and greet me, those dear chums of other days! --
Older, graver, bent with work and worldly care;
Badly marred in many features, sadly changed in many ways --
Lacking grace of limb and sorely scant of hair.
But I knew them -- oh, I knew them! Knew each girlish trick and trait --
Remnants of the merry coquetry of yore;
And recognized each impish grin, each boyish move and gait --
And I loved them as I never had before!

But ah! I saw an aged pair -- their eyes alight with pride,
Their countenances bright with love and joy! --
Hesitatingly advancing, hand in hand and side by side;
And I caught their murmured words: "My son!" -- "My boy!"
Father! -- Mother! Halt of speech were they, and quaintly, oddly dressed --
But I loved the very ground they trod upon;
And I sprang and caught them in my arms, and strained them to my breast --
As each had held me oft in years agone!

There we left the people cheering; took the well remembered road
Leading to the homestead high upon the hill,
Crossed the shrunken, dribbling creek that once made music as it flowed
To turn the mossy wheel of Bingham's mill;
Passed the lightning-blasted sycamore, its naked arms outspread --
I recalled the very day the bolt was loosed! --
Climbed the slope and reached the farmhouse with its windows sunset-red
And the noisy chickens cluttering to roost.

Supper in the roomy kitchen! Homely bliss without alloy!
There I took my old-time chair and old-time place,
And had the same old plate and mug I had when just a boy --
Heard my pious father say the same old grace.
There we ate and drank and chatted in the fond familiar way--
The gracious, gently manner of the past! --
Till the golden twilight purpled, and the purple paled to gray;
And the twinkling stars came peeping out at last.

In the little white-washed bedroom, where the wan moon's tricksy beams
Pencilled airy fairy pictures on the wall --
In the same fantastic tints that colored all my childhood dreams! --
There I soundly slept till waked by mother's call.
Father's grace was in my mem'ry, mother's voice was in my ears --
The balm of bloom was on the morning air;
Healed of all the hurts and headaches of the burden-bearing years,
A boy again was I -- without a care!

All that summer day I spent in roaming old Clovertown --
Searching here and hunting there for odds and ends
Of broken school-boy idols! -- and in strolling up and down
The streets and shaking hands with long-lost friends.
Some were dwelling in the village -- in the homes where they were born;
Others, like myself, had traveled mile on mile --
Hoping once again to know the joys of youth's sunshiny morn,
To receive the benediction of its smile.

There was Bobby Brown from Texas -- with his gracious grin unfurled,
And an overgrown sombrero on his head;
Johnny Smith, who as a youngster always planned to see the world --
But had never crossed the county ling, instead;
Tommy Plummer from Chicago, Billy Hawkins from New York,
Jimmy Fuller -- looking older than the hills;
Shorty Donaldson from Kansas -- lank and lengthy as a stork,
And wed to pretty frisky Mandy Mills.

Some were there -- and some were absent! One was lost beneath the sea,
Another laid at rest beneath the sod;
One was up in far Alaska -- serving Mammon for a fee,
One was down in distant Chili -- serving God.
Some were single -- more were married! Some had children almost grown,
To whom they gave full mead of Love and praise --
Finding in each disposition early virtues of their own,
Fond and foolish boys and girls of other days!

To the quiet little churchyard -- underneath a spreading thorn,
I went to search for truant Brother Jack;
With waving hand he left us, on a sunny summer morn --
And he never - never - never more came back!
And I thought of him, my playmate, as I stood beside the stone
That told of how he came -- and went away;
And I felt so old and weary, so dejected and so long,
That I wept -- and wondered why he had to stay!

But, ah, the picnic that we held, next day, in Hunter's grove! --
And the dinner that we knelt and hunkered round,
Where the threads of sunlight dangling through the spangling treetops wove
A lacy cloth of gold upon the ground!
How we sniffed the toothsome incense of that altar of delight
As good old Parson Dawson thanked the Lord;
Then like greedy youngster sought to cat up ev'rything in sight --
And joked and laughed and frolicked round the board!

There was lakes and streams of milk and cream, and tablelands of cake --
There were spouting coffee-geysers, steaming-hot;
That fragrant amber drink was just like mother used to make --
For she was there and made it on the spot!
There were mountain-peaks of chicken and extensive plains of pie.
Hills of luscious bread-and-butter, vales of fruit;
'Twas a goodly land of plenty smilling 'neath the summer sky --
And we were marauders after loot!

Then the games we played! The noise we made at tag and blind-man's bluff.
Hide-and-seek, and skip-the-rope, and pris'ner's-base,
Woke the echoes of the woodland; and sounded loud enough
To rouse the dozing dryads of the place.
Shorty Donaldson, in some way, tangled up his legs and fell --
The same old Shorty! -- sprawling on the turf;
And Tim Hardin, captain of the good ship Bonnie Bell.
Gave a sailor shout that thundered like the surf!

A jolly, heedless boy was I for one whole happy week!
Cuddled close to Mother Earth's warm breast again,
I bent my ear to catch the words of wisdom she might speak --
And forgot the vaunted vanities of men,
O'er the well-known hills I rambled, climbed the well-remembered trees, --
Grown to double size since I observed them last! --
Swung and teetered with the sunbeams, romped and rollicked with the breeze.
And sighed to see the rosy hours flit past!

As in olden summers of the golden years of yore,
I trudged the sun-baked highroads up and down;
Loitered in the leafy greenwood and relearned its ancient lore,
And sauntered o'er the meadow-fields of brown.
I plunged into the deep ravine below the barn, to seek
The spring I loved -- and once more drink my fill;
Wandered aimlessly along the banks of old Bald-eagle creek --
And rested in the shade of Bingham's mill.

Bingham's mill-a crazy ruin! Through the doorway yawning wide,
Crept the lazy breeze or swept the boist'rous blast;
From the broken, cobwebbed windows peeped a spirit somber-eyed --
The spirit of the dead and buried past!
And the whirring burrs were silent --lost their busy, buzzing song
And the wheel was idly dabbling in the stream,
While the murmur of the water as it softly lipped along,
Was the music of a long-forgotten dream!

Badly shriveled was the millpond where as boys we dove and swam.
Dry and weed-grown were the forebay and the race;
Gone were laden carts and wagons -- and the ford below the dam
Mirrored now no barefoot urchin's freckled face.
But I loafed and lolled upon the butment's crumbling, mossy brim,
And I fished -- and wished for nothing but to know
That my soul was steeped in sunshine, as the minnows were a-swim
In the filmy floating shadows far below!

Dear delightful Land of merriment! I roamed it all again --
From the gaunt gray house of worship on the ridge
To the humble little schoolhouse nestling low in Carter's glen,
And the sun-fish pool near Sandy Bottom bridge.
I lived and loved and laughed again -- and was so loathe to leave,
I argued with myself for longer stay;
But grim, unfeeling duty sought me out and plucked my sleeve --
And pointed to the city far away!

PART III

So here I am back at my work -- revivified, reborn!
In my mind the pressing duties of the day;
But in my soul the sunshine of the dewy summer morn
And the fragrance of the fields of new mown hay
Father's grace still tarries with me, mother's voice still greets my ears --
The balm of bloom still lingers, cool and sweet;
And I'm ready -- eager, ready! -- for the warfare of the years --
Fore the never-ending battle of the street!

And I swing my pack upon my willing shoulder once again --
And smile to note the lightness of the load;
I trudge and whistle on my way, as merrily as when
I trudged and whistled 'long the country road.
And the tumult of the city -- all its brazen clash and blare.
And the hoarse and throbbing thunder of its might --
Is soul-inspiring music of a stirring martial air
To which I march to conquer in the fight!

Yet -- in spite of all! -- I sometimes pause -- and think -- and long to be
Cuddled close to Mother Earth's fond breast again,
To catch the words of wisdom that I know she has for me --
And forget the worthless vanities of men;
To ramble o're the grassy hills, to climb the spreading trees --
The meadow-fields and pasture-lots of roam;
To whistle with the robins and to frolic with the bees --
For my best love's back there in the dear old home!

*    *    *   *    *    *    *    *    *

Old home days, or old home week, began for more practical than sentimental reasons. New England farming towns were losing population and the state and town governments were drowning in debt. In 1897, the governor of New Hampshire, Frank West Rollins, came upon an idea. He established Old Home Week in order to lure back native born New Englanders to their home towns. He thought that, upon seeing where they had been born and turning on the flood of memories, these folk would buy back their old farms, contribute to the upkeep of the local communities, donate to the libraries and meeting houses... and further, that the local towns would awaken from their "moral slumber." He explained:

"I wish that in the ear of every son and daughter of New Hampshire, in the summer days, might be heard whispered the persuasive words: Come back, come back. Do you not hear the call? What has become of the old home where you were born? Do you not remember it -- the old farm back among the hills, with its rambling buildings, its well sweep casting its long shadows, the row of stiff poplar trees, the lilacs and the willows?"

Here, Rollins expressed the nostalgic side of Old Home Week. He knew full well that pulling on strong emotional bonds was a better angle than just asking people to donate money. Rollins was also thinking long into the future of these New England farm towns:

"There have been, of course, reunions since the beginning of time, but my plan differed from the ordinary reunion in that it was to occupy a week in each year so that each one could make his plans to be back, and was to be recognized by the state as a permanent festival."

And his arguments were successful as in 1899, he oversaw the state's first official Old Home Week festivities.

By 1907, when Naylor wrote his ode to Old Home Week, the idea had spread to the rest of New England and across the nation to places such as Ohio, Alabama, North Carolina, Kentucky... and even across national boundaries to Canada and Australia.

What is interesting about Naylor's poem is the expression of the contrast between the city and the country. Of course, the turn of the 20th century brought with it extensive urban expansion and rapid technological advancements. The pace of change frightened many as to what may be inadvertently lost in the process, not to mention whether our human processing abilities would be ready to adapt quickly enough to all that was new and different. The German sociologist Georg Simmel wrote his famous treatise on "The Metropolis and Mental Life" in 1903 in which he warned about the rapidity of images and intellectual stimulation that the city forced upon a person and which would take up large amounts of man's consciousness and mental space. These threats included:

... the rapid crowding of changing images, the sharp discontinuity in the grasp of a single glance, and the unexpectedness of onrushing impressions. These are the psychological conditions which the metropolis creates. With each crossing of the street, with the tempo and multiplicity of economic, occupational, and social life, the city sets up a deep contrast with small town and rural life with reference to the sensory foundations of psychic life. The metropolis exacts from man as a discriminating creature a different amount of consciousness than does rural life. Here the rhythm of life and sensory mental imagery flows more slowly, more habitually, and more evenly. Precisely in this connection the sophisticated character of metropolitan psychic life becomes understandable -- as over against small town life which rests more upon deeply felt and emotional relationships. These latter are rooted in the more unconscious layers of the psyche and grow most readily in the steady rhythm of uninterrupted habituations. The intellect, however, has its locus in the transparent, conscious, higher layers of the psyche; it is the most adaptable of our inner forces. In order to accommodate to change and to the contrast of phenomena, the intellect does not require any shocks and inner upheavals; it is only through such upheavals that the more conservative mind could accommodate to the metropolitan rhythm of events. Thus the metropolitan type of man -- which, of course, exists in a thousand individual variants -- develops an organ protecting him against the threatening currents and discrepancies of his external environment which would uproot him. He reacts with his head instead of his heart. In this an increased awareness assumes the psychic prerogative. Metropolitan life, thus, underlies a heightened awareness and a predominance of intelligence in metropolitan man. The reaction to metropolitan phenomena is shifted to that organ which is least sensitive and quite remote from the depth of personality. Intellectuality is thus seen to preserve subjective life against the overwhelming power of metropolitan life, and intellectuality branches out in many directions and is integrated with numerous discrete phenomena. (Simmel, 1903)

In short, we lose our emotional connections. An indifferent, almost cold intellectual outlook dominates the urban man because it is required for him to take on all of the rapid changes, all of the mass of stimulating distractors that confront and assault him as he moves through and amidst the city. The values of punctuality, calculating thought processes, and exactness take predominance over a rhythmic connection with the world, spirituality, and emotional bonding. Thereby, man loses some of his instincts and much of his natural connection with the world. As the metropolis is about individual success, personal freedom overtakes social connections in import. Thus, Simmel felt, modern culture leads to a "preponderance of what one may call the 'objective spirit' over the 'subjective spirit.'.. Indeed... we notice a retrogression in the culture of the individual with reference to spirituality, delicacy, and idealism." Self-preservation is of the utmost importance... it dominates the brain of the urban man... and somehow, it kills his soul. Simmel's particular perspectives on urban and rural life have infiltrated the way in which we see the two places.

It is just such a notion that intrigued Raymond Williams in his Introduction to The Country and the City. He writes:

'Country' and 'city' are very powerful words, and this is not surprising when we remember how much they seem to stand for in the experience of human communities. In English, 'country' is both a nation and a part of a 'land'; 'the country' can be the whole society or its rural area. In the long history of human settlements, this connection between the land from which directly or indirectly we all get our living and the achievements of human society has been deeply known. And one of these achievements has been the city: the capital, the large town, a distinctive form of civilisation.

On the actual settlements, which in the real history have been astonishingly varied, powerful feelings have gathered and have been generalised. On the country has gathered the idea of a natural way of life: of peace, innocence, and simple virtue. On the city has gathered the idea of an achieved centre: of learning, communication, light. Powerful hostile associations have also developed: on the city as a place of noise, worldliness and ambition; on the country as a place of backwardness, ignorance, limitation. A contrast between country and city, as fundamental ways of life, reaches back into classical times.

Yet, the real history, throughout, has been astonishingly varied. The 'country way of life' has included the very different practices of hunters, pastoralists, farmers and factory farmers, and its organisation has varied from the tribe and the manor to the feudal estate, from the small peasantry and tenant farmers to the rural commune, from the latifundia and the plantation to the large capitalist enterprise and the state farm. The city, no less, has been of many kinds: state capital, administrative base, religious centre, market-town, port and mercantile depot, military barracks, industrial concentration. Between the cities of ancient and medieval times and the modern metropolis or conurbation there is a connection of name and in part of function, but nothing like identity. Moreover, in our own world, there is a wide range of settlements between the traditional poles of country and city: suburb, dormitory town, shanty town, industrial estate. Even the idea of the village, which seems simple, shows in actual history a wide variation: as to size and character, and internally in its variation between dispersed and nuclear settlements, in Britain as clearly as anywhere...

This importance can be stated, and will have to be assessed, as a general problem. But it is well to say at the outset that this has been for me a personal issue, for as long as I remember. It happened that in a predominantly urban and industrial Britain I was born in a remote village, in a very old settled countryside, on the border between England and Wales. Within twenty miles, indeed at the end of a bus route, was in one direction an old cathedral city, in the other an old frontier market town but only a few miles beyond it the first industrial towns and villages of the great coal and steel area of South Wales. Before I had read any descriptions and interpretations of the changes and variations of settlements and ways of life, I saw them on the ground, and working, in unforgettable clarity. In the course of education I moved to another city, build round a university, and since then, living and travelling and working, I have come to visit, and to need to visit, so many great cities, of different kinds, and to look forward and back, in space and time, knowing and seeking to know this relationship, as an experience and as a problem...

Thus at once, for me, before the argument starts, country life has many meanings. It is the elms, the may, the white horse, in the field beyond the window where I am writing. It is the men in the November evening, walking back from pruning, with their hands in the pockets of their khaki coats; and the women in headscarves, outside their cottages, waiting for the blue bus that will take them, inside school hours, to work in the harvest. It is the tractor on the road, leaving its tracks of serrated pressed mud; the light in the small hours, in the pig-farm across the road, in the crisis of a litter; the slow brown van met at the difficult corner, with the crowded sheep jammed to its slatted sides; the heavy smell, on still evenings, of the silage ricks fed with molasses. It is also the sour land, on the thick boulder clay, not far up the road, that is selling for housing, for a speculative development, at twelve thousand pounds an acre.

As I said, I was born in a village, and I still live in a village. But where I was born was under the Black Mountains, on the Welsh border, where the meadows are bright green against the red earth of the ploughland, and the first trees, beyond the window, are oak and holly. Where I live now is in the flat country, on a headland of boulder clay, towards the edge of the dikes and sluices, the black earth of the Fens, under the high East Anglican skies...

In the east now, at nights, over the field with the elms and the white horse, I watch the glow of Cambridge: a white tinged with orange; and in the autumn, here, the stubble fields are burned, sometimes catching the thorn hedges, and when I saw this first at night I took it as strange accidental fire. My own network, from where I sit writing at the window, is to Cambridge and London, and beyond them to the postmark places, the unfamiliar stamps and the distant cities: Rome, Moscow, New York.

The lights of the city. I go out in the dark, before bed, and look at that glow in the sky: a look at the city while remembering Hardy's Jude, who stood and looked at the distance, attainable and unattainable, Christminster. Or I remember Wordsworth, coming from high country to London, and saying from Westminster Bridge:

"Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This city now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air."

It is true that this was the city before the rush and noise of the working day, but the pulse of the recognition is still unmistakable, and I know that I have felt it again and again: the great buildings of civilisation; the meeting-places; the libraries and theatres, the towers and domes; and often more moving than these, the houses, the streets, the press and excitement of so many people, with so many purposes. I have stood in many cities and felt this pulse: in the physical differences of Stockholm and Florence, Paris and Milan: this identifiable and moving quality: the centre, the activity, the light. Like everyone else I have felt also the chaos of the metro and the traffic jam; the monotony of the ranks of houses; the aching press of strange crowds. But this is not an experience at all, not an adult experience, until it has come to include also the dynamic movement, in these centres of settled and often magnificent achievement. H. G. Wells once said, coming out of a political meeting where they had been discussing social change, that this great towering city was a measure of the obstacle, of how much must be moved if there was to be any change. I have known this feeling, looking up at great buildings that are the centres of power, but I find I do not say 'There is your city, your great bourgeois monument, your towering structure of this still precarious civilisation' or I do not only say that; I say also 'This is what men have built, so often magnificently, and is not everything then possible?' Indeed this sense of possibility, of meeting and of movement, is a permanent element of my sense of cities: as permanent a feeling as those other feelings, when I look from the mountain at the great coloured patchwork of fields that generations of my own people have cleared and set in hedges; or the known living places, the isolated farms, the cluster of cottages by castle or church, the line of river and wood and footpath and lane; lines received and lines made. So that while country and city have this profound importance, in their differing ways, my feelings are held, before any argument starts.

But then also, specifically, I came from a village to a city: to be taught, to learn: to submit to personal facts, the incidents of a family, to a total record; to learn evidence and connection and altering perspectives. If the walls of the colleges were like the walls of parks, that as children we had walked round, unable to enter, yet now there was a gate, an entry, and a library at the end of it: a direct record, if I could learn to read it. It is ironic to remember that it was only after I came that I heard, from townsmen, academics, an influential version of what country life, country literature, really meant: a prepared and persuasive cultural history. I read related things still, in academic books and in books by men who left private schools to go farming, and by others who grew up in villages and are now country writers: a whole set of books, periodicals, notes in newspapers: country life. And I find I keep asking the same question, because of the history: where do I stand in relation to these writers: in another country or in this valuing city? That problem is sharp and ironic in its cultural persistence. (Raymond Williams, The Country and the City, 1973)

And so Williams struggles with the distinctions, the idealizations, the stereotypes, the realities, the nostalgic longings, the connections and disconnections -- that exists between and amongst the city and the country. Old Home Days are a chance to fall into the stereotypes and the nostalgia... or to ponder the ways in which these two realms have been set up against each other as foes and opposites... how they have been typecast and frozen in perpetual images that may not melt upon the actual reality. Nonetheless, Old Home Days proliferate around New England and should be taken in. Old Home Days are not just a chance to remind the city man of his lost connections to family and nature, but to imbue the country with urban vibrancy and ideas. Between city and country, there can and should be an exchange... rather than a fallacious contradistinction. These places are not just places to dig up the graves of memory past, but are living places, full of present and people and life... in which memory is incorporated and thereby its celebration can be a celebration of genuine connection rather than of sentiment only.

slow moving molasses lazy

I just wrote a wonderful post about being lazy... and then erased it. Really, it is time for me to just be completely lazy. Ugh...

Incredibly frustrating... but being the determined person that I am, I am going to attempt to recreate the post as best as I can. It began as follows....

I don't want to do anything. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I want to be lazy. Blah blah blah... I said some other stuff about all the things I didn't want to do (go for a walk, go to the beach, run errands, etc) and then I began to consider how my laziness related to a fissure between our rational sense of time and the flow of time itself. Conscious time is fluid. As William James wrote back in 1884:

Consciousness does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as 'chain' or 'train' do not describe it fitly... It is nothing jointed; it flows. (James, quoted in Stephen Kern, The Culture of Time and Space)

Our world is fast-paced. And often we must live out much of our lives in pre-determined 'chunks' of time.... seconds, hours, weeks, weekends, workdays, vacations, etc. We try to multi-task even when myriads of studies have suggested that it's not possible. For the past year, I have had to get up at 3:30 am in order to prepare for work. I didn't want to mentally and definitely not physically... but in order to be the kind of teacher I wanted, I had to disconnect from one kind of time.... the fluid one. Thus, being successful in this world requires eschewing one sort of time and structuring one's life according to another... to another which may be totally antithetical to the way in which we should (in some sense) be living. We are incredibly used to this broken up unit kind of time. We measure our lives. We go to the gym and type in 45 minutes on the elliptical. We set timers to cook our food. We get irritated when pieces of time don't fit where they are supposed to... like when we have to wait until 2:15 for a 1:30pm doctor's appointment. These pieces of time are the way we have rationally constructed time to fit the kind of world we live in... but they come to control us... and perhaps even remove meaning from our lives. In the film, About a Boy (2002), Hugh Grant's character describes the way his life works:

My life is made up of units of time. Buying CDs -- two units. Eating lunch -- three units. Exercising -- two units. All in all, I had a very full life. It's just that it didn't mean anything.

Moving through life in unit-time may detract from the fullness of our lives. Such was the notion of thinkers like Bergson and Nietzsche and Freud who argued for the critical importance of the personal past. History is truly written by the victors.... and thus the large and unwitting social, political, and world forces that determine so much of 'where we come from' are out of our control. I remember reading Eric Wolf's Europe and the People without History for the first time and feeling a sense of awe at the notion that there were so many untold histories, so many unheard voices. Time can dominate us in this way... and thus laziness may be an expression of personal affront, a passive rebellion against all that is over our heads and out of our control. Because even though I loved being the best teacher I could be, there came with my loss of control over my own time a sort of resentment... a resentment directed nowhere because where could I direct it? Towards time? And yet, it would manifest in other frustrations. And I would feel not myself. And I desperately desired to remember what it felt like to be myself... and to be just a little bit in control of how that person moved through the world. Indeed the privilege of money is that you own your own time... you control how it is used... you only need to be somewhere if you want to be there... and even then, on your own time. Still though, even money can't overcome the measured nature of our lives. The way that holidays arrive whether we want them to or not. The breakage of experiences into days, hours, seconds. The inescapability of thinking about bedtimes and meal times and times when every single thing in our live is supposed to happen.

For the thinkers mentioned above, a renewed connection with one's personal definition of the past was essential:

The historical past was the sources of social forces over which they had little control; it created institutions that had lasted for centuries; and it limited their sense of autonomy. The overbearing deterministic formal systems of nineteenth-century historicism produced broad, general laws of history, whereas these thinkers wanted to understand the unique responses of individuals to particular circumstances... Above all they wanted freedom. They focused their attention on the personal past, because they believed it to be a richer source of subject matter than the remote and impersonal historical record. The personal past was something over which they might gain some control. One is not responsible for history in the way one is responsible for one's past, even one's childhood. And if one is more responsible for the personal past, then one can hope to understand it, perhaps even refashion it, as indeed Nietzsche, Ibsen, Freud, Bergson, Gide, Proust, Joyce, and the Futurists, each in different ways, insisted that we must. (Kern, 63)

Being responsible in this sense is having some kind of ownership over one's time and one's experience of it. What endures? And what are we forced to endure? Such were questions that Salvador Dali also posed in many of his surrealist paintings. Kern writes about his depiction of the dominance of unit-time in all of the clocks that are present in The Persistence of Memory (1931):

One [clock] is hanging from a tree in a reminder that the duration of an event may be stretched in memory. Another with a fly on it suggests that the object of memory is some kind of carrion that decays as well as melts. The third deformed watch curls over a hybrid embryonic form -- symbol of the way life distorts the geometrical shape and mathematical exactness of mechanical time. The one unmelted watch is covered with ants that seem to be devouring it as it devours the time of our lives. (Kern, 23)

Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory (1931)

Where does memory persist? And is it devoured by the time by which we must live? Therein lies much of my desire to be lazy. I don't want to be told where to be or what to do. I want just to feel my own time and to be in control of how I use it. It is not really that I want to do nothing. It's that I want to do the things I want to do.

And inasmuch, my laziness expresses another kind of desire. I reiterate that I don't actually want to do nothing.... but the things I want to do are not 'active' in the way that our society values activity. I don't want to be physically active right now. But I am being active. I am watching the birds swoop off the roof and dance up from the woods towards my feeder. I am writing a poem out long-hand and then editing it and rewriting it on the computer. I am noticing the changing, shifting cloud formations, the slow disappearance and peek-a-boo reappearance of the sun. I am listening... to distant calls from playing children, to chirping and warning calls from birds, to breezes that lift and hover and then die out. I am standing and stretching when I feel the need. I am sitting and pausing and being when I feel that need. There is a beautiful flow that I am finding myself able to flow within... and in doing so, I lose sense of time altogether. In an article on our fast-paced society, Linda Buzzell warns against the way in which we are disconnected from the natural flow of time:

Time poverty is now a recognized psychological and social stressor. In a speeded-up, highly complex society, there just isn't enough time for everything: our demanding jobs, our interlocking bureaucratic responsibilities (taxes, insurance, legal issues), our loved one, kids, our community (including the rest of nature), plus commuting and keeping up with traditional media and endless 24/7 online communications.

My laziness is a reaction against this kind of stress. My laziness is an expression of self... and a reconnection with my own time, with my loved ones, with myself, with my sense of the here and now. In my loss of the first writing of this blog, I was outwitted by technology. Exactly the kind of thing from which my desire for laziness stems. So, be lazy this weekend. Enjoy reconnecting with people and experiences and moments that have become distant from you. Look. Listen. Feel. Love. Live. Be lazy. You need it.

the unknown: 'adventure beckons!'

One of the last novels I taught this year was Life of Pi. Early on in the narrative, Pi explains his notion that freedom is mistakenly correlated with happiness.

"I have heard nearly as much nonsense about zoos as I have about God and religion. Well-meaning but misinformed people think animals in the wild are 'happy' because they are 'free.' These people usually have a large, handsome predator in mind, a lion or a cheetah (the life of a gnu or an aardvark is rarely exalted). They imagine this wild animal roaming about the savannah on digestive walks after eating a prey that accepted its lot piously, or going for calisthenic runs to stay slim after overindulging. They imagine this animal overseeing its offspring proudly and tenderly, the whole family watching the setting of the sun from the limbs of trees with sighs of pleasure. The life of the wild animal is simple, noble and meaningful, they imagine. Then it is captured by wicked men and thrown into tiny jails. Its 'happiness' is dashed. It yearns mightily for 'freedom' and does all it can to escape. Being denied its 'freedom' for too long, the animal becomes a shadow of itself, its spirit broken. So some people imagine.

This is not the way it is.

Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply of food low and where territory must constantly be defended and parasites forever endured. What is the meaning of freedom in such a context? Animals in the wild are, in practice, free neither in space nor in time, nor in their personal relations. In theory -- that is, as a simple physical possibility -- an animal could pick up and go, flaunting all the social conventions and boundaries proper to its species. But such an event is less likely to happen than for a member of our own species, say a shopkeeper with all the usual ties -- to family, to friends, to society, to drop everything and walk away from his life with only the spare change in his pockets and the clothes on his frame. If a man, boldest and most intelligent of creatures, won't wander from place to place, a stranger to all, beholden to none, why would an animal, which is by temperament far more conservative?

... But I don't insist. I don't mean to defend zoos. Close them all down if you want (and let us hope that what wildlife remains can survive in what is left of the natural world). I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both." (Yann Martel, Life of Pi, 15-19)

In a class discussion, my students and I pondered the connection. Are the happiest people the most free? Or do boundaries play a role in happiness? One of my students brought up the concept of the unknown. We fear the unknown, she suggested, unless it is the illusion of the unknown... an unknown that seems exciting and distant, but actually exists within our particular existing boundaries. Our discussion was philosophic and lively. And it sparked my thinking and continues to do so. Most of us came to the conclusion that happiness involves some sort of boundaries. There is some connection between happiness and safety and knowing what to expect. There is also the need to be able to reach beyond boundaries... to challenge oneself to attain new levels of achievement or understanding... but still, this is related to boundaries. Does this suggest, in opposition, that there is some correlation between the unknown and fear?

My mother recently came across the final independent project I did as a senior in high school. Last night, I spent some time re-familiarizing myself with what I had written. It is always interesting to me to try to re-enter a self from the past. There is some sort of insurmountable distance between the you of now and the you of any particular past moment. There are certain moments in my life where I hardly relate to the me that I was. I bring all this up because this, too, is a sort of unknown. The unknown self that one once was. The strange feeling of disconnection from that which you have grown out of. Personally, this is uncomfortable. Perhaps even a bit scary.

But back to the project. This was a self from the past that I could connect to... because the project I had chosen was such an expression of something fundamentally "me." I had written four biographies of different family members. Family has always been deeply important to me. What I love about what I had done was that I didn't try to cover each person's entire life, but picked an event or thread that wove through their life and focused on that. Nonetheless, in my introduction to the project, I wrote the following:

"When my cousin Sarah was learning to talk, she called my grandmother 'gamma' because she had trouble pronouncing the separate syllables. No one was surprised as most children struggle with sounds and syllables at first, but we all had to laugh when she called my grandfather 'gamma' also.

We laughed at her mistake, but we were not worried about it. She was only a couple years old and, like most children, did not really understand who her grandparents were, or that they were different from one another.

My family used to visit my father's parents at their house in ---- a couple times a year. My memories of ---- are all fairly mundane: waking up to the smell of bacon and eggs frying; hiking up Mt. ---- with my parents and brothers; playing 'wiggles' with my cousins; sitting on my cousin ----'s lap, quietly eating peanuts while we waited for the grown-ups to finish talking so we could eat dinner. While I remember ---- fondly, it's interesting to find that the scenes I initially recall have nothing to do with my grandparents as people. I think that children have trouble grasping the concept of grandparents. I always feared my grandparents slightly, because they seemed to know everything about me, and I really didn't know anything about them."

What is it, then, about the unknown that frightens? In this case, it seems it was some sort of imbalance. Their knowledge of me and the impossibility of my equal knowledge of them. Knowledge here is power... though I do not intend to suggest they wanted to assert any power over me. Rather, it was my feeling of impotency that was scary. In some weird way, this is similar to sensing that a company "knows" a lot about you -- by tracking your purchasing habits or monitoring your online activities. It is the fear of being seen and not being able to see. Foucault's panopticon.

Perhaps it is critical to distinguish unknowns. Throughout my life, I have absolutely hated the feeling of fear. I just despise being afraid of something. It makes me feel weak. Thus, what I have tried to do is attack exactly those things that scare me the most. I took flying lessons. I traveled all over the world by myself. I went to foreign countries where I barely knew the language. I worked in a remote, practically unexplored part of Alaska. I took jobs that seemed above my head and beyond my capacities. Each time, what I have discovered is that it is merely the unknown that frightens. Once I jump into the thing itself, I am fine. And coming out of these experiences on the other side, I have become more of myself... I have learned about the world, gained new perspectives, achieved new levels of responsibility, accomplished things I wasn't sure I could accomplish... but then those things led me to even higher levels of seeking and discovering... and fulfillment.

But, in a sense, these are 'bounded unknowns.' What I mean is that the exact details of them are unknown, but the general notion is known... and they remain within some sort of world of which I am already aware. What about the unknowns that cannot be known?

I remember having discussions with my brother in high school about space beyond the existence of bounded space.... or what the universe was before it began... or how to deal with the problem of relative knowledge and morality... These are questions or impasses we could never truly penetrate... or resolve. It excited me to no end to discuss these sorts of things. But, I also recall each of us coming to a point after long durations of conversation, when we couldn't deal with the question anymore. The overwhelming nature of its unknowability had conquered us... and we didn't want to face it anymore. Discussed to the point of exhaustion, what was left was only what we did not -- could not -- know... and peering into that black abyss, we felt the fear returning.

If you look up 'unknown' in the thesaurus, you come up with the following (amongst others): mysterious, new, foreign, exotic, undiscovered, unnamed, unexplored, unsung, untold.... concealed, dark, desolate, fallen, vanquished, void. For me, there is a fundamental difference between the words before and after the ellipsis. The former group identifies the unknown as an exciting new leap of self... something that is foreign to oneself, but not threatening... something that may open new worlds, new stories, new discoveries. This kind of unknown is exciting, thrilling, albeit a little scary.

The latter group deems the unknown as something impenetrable... and perhaps something that one would not want to know even if one could. Sometimes I feel a sadness that is almost overwhelming and cosmic. It seems I feel the weight of all the pain that everyone in the world has ever felt. In all honesty, I do not want to know where this feeling emanates from. I do not want to know this unknown any more than I know it physically and emotionally already. If I did, it just might undo me. It just might be too destructive.

There is the unknown that is full of possibility... and there is the unknown that is full of impossibility. There is the unknown which opens freedom. And there is the unknown that could imprison. There is the unknown that is an adventure. And there is the unknown that is far too risky to attempt. Not all knowing is the same. Not all unknowing is either.

when it ends, it pours

Yesterday was the last official day of work at our high school... and it was my last day as a teacher there as my future plans are taking a new turn. It was a significant ending. And endings open the flood of other endings like a storm surge.

Last week, I was grading a batch of final exams from one of my favorite classes. There had been a palpable energy, a genuine camaraderie, a profound connection of sorts between all of us in that class. They were my 'E-block family.' I sat reading the responses and I could picture each student in my head as I graded. I heard their voices. I saw their smiles and enthusiasm and their pure love of ideas. With each exam the feeling built until after a mere three of four I became overwhelmed. "I'm sorry, this is seriously insane... but this is too much for me," I told my boyfriend before excusing myself into the bedroom where I curled up on my bed and began to cry. I cried alone for a while, existing in the solitude of my own loss, before returning to the other room and my boyfriend's waiting open arms. He held me and reassured me... which helped, of course... but I couldn't shake the pain -- the deep pain of the soul that becomes physical -- that I might never see some of these students again.

What was my loss? Was it the loss of the connection? Was it the loss of the moments we could create only in that room with those people during this particular year? Was it the loss of what they saw in me? Was it the loss of laughter shared in a place that feels so safe that you can bare your soul?

There are so many cliches about endings. Every ending is a new beginning. When one door closes, another door opens. For me, endings have never been integrally connected to new beginnings. For me, they are separate entities. And "ending" is the wrong word... because I hold onto all past experiences. They never leave me. I never "end" them. I don't close their doors and enter new ones. Rather, I move down one long hallway, voices always echoing behind me... footsteps traced and still visible if I turn around... the scent of memory lingering and sometimes reawakened unexpectedly by some new encounter. What ends is never lost or forgotten. Not for me.

Authors deal with this subject all the time. Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is one long meditation on how to deal with endings -- in this case, the marriage of large-scale trauma to personal loss. The pain of the overwhelmingly huge event hovers... holds above in the sky at a distance... becomes its own dark atmosphere... still isolates us from each other... and then sometimes can connect us. The threads of personal loss that isolate. The endings that come suddenly or even with anticipation and then make us more afraid then we ever were before.

"Three hours later, when I climbed into the hole, brushed away the dirt, and opened the lid, the renter opened the suitcases. They were filled with papers. I asked him what they were. He wrote, 'I lost a son.' 'You did?' He showed me his left palm. 'How did he die?' 'I lost him before he died.' 'How?' 'I went away.' 'Why?' He wrote, 'I was afraid.' 'Afraid of what?' 'Afraid of losing him.' 'Were you afraid of him dying?' 'I was afraid of him living.' 'Why?' He wrote, 'Life is scarier than death.'" (Extremely Loud, 322)

What happens when the end hurts so much we cannot take it anymore? We must keep living. And living can be scary. Sometimes we protect ourselves so much that numbness becomes our state of being.

"I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness." (EL, 180)

It ends and everything becomes "closer and louder." Your boots get heavier. Every moment depends upon the ones before it and, vice versa, "[e]very moment before this one depends on this one." (EL, 232) We remake and shape our past into our present just as much as it shapes us the first time. And we want to tell them what we never said. And we want to say what we never knew how to say. And we want to say so much, so much more than if the moment never closed. The moment closes and the words fill our mouths and minds and hearts... and they are wordless words because we cannot find the way to articulate them... and so our bodies fill with the weight of letters and vowels and consonants and sounds that don't make any sense. And the weight makes our boots heavier still.

"There won't be enough pages in this book for me to tell you what I need to tell you, I could write smaller, I could slice the pages down their edges to make two pages, I could write over my writing, but then what?" (EL, 276)

"The room was filled with conversations we weren't having." (278)

"... I sat on the bed and thought, I thought about you. What kind of food did you like, what was your favorite song, who was the first girl you kissed, and where, and how, I'm running out of room, I want an infinitely long blank book and forever, I don't know how much time passed, it didn't matter, I'd lost all of my reasons to keep track... I wanted to build walls around him, I wanted to separate inside from outside, I wanted to give him an infinitely long blank book and the rest of time... I wanted to touch him, to tell him that even if everyone left everyone, I would never leave him, he talked and talked, his words fell through him, trying to find the floor of his sadness." (280)

And how does Oskar deal with his own ending, with the extremely loud and incredibly close loss of his father? With the inexplicability of endings? He takes advantage of the conditional tense, that verb formation of the always possible...

"Dad would've gone backward through the turnstile...
He would've gotten up again at the end of the night before the worst day...
He would've walked backward to my room...
We would've looked at the stars on my ceiling, which would've pulled back their light from our eyes.
I'd have said 'Nothing' backward.
He'd have said 'Yeah, buddy?' backward.
I'd have said 'Dad?' backward, which would have sounded the same as 'Dad' forward.
He would have told me the story of the Sixth Borough, from the voice in the can at the end to the beginning, from 'I love you' to 'Once upon a time...'
We would have been safe." (EL, 326)

He also manipulates images... reverses the pictures of a man falling so that he returns upwards back through the window into his office. Images of the impossible. Images of return from endings. So, he combines the possible with the impossible. He takes all that makes sense and all that doesn't and wraps it up together and remembers to say "I love you" to the ones he loves in the here and now.

Sometimes an ending is a reworking. Sometimes an ending is accepting that there are no clues to lead us back to the beginning. There are no words to speak the closure that you desire to feel. Or fear to feel. Other times an ending is an about-face... a return to peer at the unknown, misunderstood self in the mirror... with the weight of guilt keeping the door to that past painfully open... as in James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room:

"The body in the mirror forces me to turn and face it. And I look at my body, which is under sentence of death. It is lean, hard, and cold, the incarnation of a mystery. And I do not know what moves in this body, what this body is searching. It is trapped in my mirror as it is trapped in time and it hurries toward revelation.

...The morning weights on my shoulders with the dreadful weight of hope and I take the blue envelope which Jacques has sent me and tear it slowly into many pieces, watching them dance in the wind, watching the wind carry them away. Yet, as I turn and begin walking toward the waiting people, the wind blows some of them back on me." (GR, 168-169)

Even a gentle breeze can pull the veil of the past back over our eyes, can envelop us in what is "over." The hope -- that optimistic movement into the future -- can itself become a weight. We are always dealing with endings and loss. The question is how to incorporate them successfully into your present and future. And how not to end the ones that will wrack us with guilt, will tear at our heartstrings, will echo down every hallway we ever choose becoming the aching walls of an imprisoned life... where every room we enter becomes the one from which we could never escape:

"This is the room I have never been in.
This is the room I could never breathe in." (Sylvia Plath, "Wintering")

"What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?" (Plath, "Conversation Among the Ruins")

I leave my students, but I do not leave them. I cannot quit them. I hope they do not forget all of the words. I will remember theirs. I will be forever deeply moved by them. They are part of the bones of my life now, part of the me that is blood and sinew and beating heart... part of the me that moves into the future, carrying them always with me. The ending is but an ending only in the sense of what we now cannot create anew, but it is not an ending of meaning. With time, their meaning and value to me will only become greater. Just as love. That most beautiful of eternally everyday beginnings. And yes, without endings we "would be safe." Yes, we will never be safe. But safe is not the territory of loss. Nor is it the place of new beginnings... or of love. Safe is staying still. Everything else is about movement.

iambic pentameter a.k.a.

I love my students and appreciate how hard it is to be introduced to something completely new. What we know seems so obvious and we forget how hard it was to learn and remember it in the first place. Nonetheless, some of them have done a good job (inadvertently) of amusing me on their final exams. I put the following question on a "Fill in the Blanks" section on their exam:

"A Shakespearean sonnet has 14 lines and uses the structure of 3 quatrains and a couplet. Each line has a metrical rhythm called _______________________ which describes which syllables are emphasized. Some say it sounds like a heartbeat."

Here are some of the responses I have received:

1. piemeter distress
2. ABAB
3. iambonic pentameter (ohhhh, so close!)
4. pantemic diameter
5. rhyme scheme
6. iamic pantameter
7. a beat
8. amtamic pandameter
9. pentemic biometer
10. sonnet
11. samatic pentonamer

Again, I love my students. Mistakes are okay. Learning is a process.

dimensions part II...

#18: The number of dimensions we can perceive is the number of dimensions from 1st to 3rd. 1st being defined with length but no width... by which we can infer that the "zero-th" dimension is just a point in space with neither width nor length. Based on the first dimension, we can create a second dimension... giving a length an added width. When coming to our third dimensional world, we already have a length and height or an x and a y coordinate for every given object. We need to add a z for depth because of things. This 3rd dimensional world we in is one where those of us cannot perceive what a fourth dimensional object or fifth dimensional object is even like.

#19: There are five dimensions: the first is a line - 1D. The second is something like a drawing. It's flat, but takes up space on the flat surface - 2D. The third is what most things are... what movie-makers are constantly trying to create - 3D. It's a tangible object, something that you can hold. 4D is something that movie-makers have also said that their movies replicate, though they are wrong. The fourth dimension is time. What movie-makers are saying is 4D is really just 3D. They want to make it sound cooler. The fifth dimension is a tesseract which, according to Madeleine L'Engle is "a wrinkle in time" which is where her famous book got its name. Basically, you squeeze time and space to create a tesseract which, from what I can remember, can take one to alien places and times. Beyond the fifth dimension, some say that there are even more dimensions, although they become so complicated no one really gets it. To us, only the first three dimensions really exist. We can see them so easily. A line is a line is a line -- we know what that is. We see 2D things all the time: in artwork, blueprints, movies, and video games. Likewise, 3D is a natural part of life. All objects are three dimensional. It's nothing new to us. However, time is a concept, an idea. It's not something you can see or touch. Rather it's something you contemplate. We know that time is passing. We count it, we remember times when things were different from when we didn't exist. But it's not like a line or a drawing or an object. Time could be said to not exist at all. You cannot say that a person doesn't exist. It's different with time. It's intangible. A tesseract may or may not exist. We don't know. At this point, we definitely could not perform one, so for now, humans are unable to go beyond three-dimensional.

#20: In math, there are four dimensions. In each new dimension, things go in a new direction. Something with zero dimension is just a point. A point is an infinitely small place in space. Something with one dimension is a line. A line is made up with an infinite amount of infinitely small points. You can measure how long a line segment is, but you can't measure it any other way -- it only has one dimension. Something with two dimensions has both length and width. A shape that you can draw on a piece of paper has two dimensions. You can measure its length and width, but not its height. A plane has infinite length and width. Something with three dimensions has width, length, and height... such as a cube. You can measure these three dimensions. Space is a concept of something with infinite width, length, and height, and it supposedly contains all of the points in existence. The final known dimension is an abstract idea -- time. You cannot measure it with a ruler, but with something that keeps track of time. Something with four dimensions changes as time continues. This brings up the question of "what is time?" Does time exist? Can we go back in time? We, as human beings, cannot help but to ponder these questions that may not ever be answered.

#21: There are only three dimensions: length, width, and height. Dimensions exist only as we see them and not in an emotional way. Emotions exist within the same dimensions as we do. Height is how far something extends upward when placed on the ground. Length and width are size of something measured in two perpendicular lines to their longest point. All objects have three dimensions except images that only have two. Ideas exist as three-dimensional chunks of code in your brain. There are, and always will be, three dimensions.

#22: There are many dimensions, as many as you would like, and they can be anything and contain everything you want. For example, there would be a dimension for hockey in my many dimensions, and there would be a dimension where I could own any car I want and I would have garages just filled with cars. Although there would be dimensions for school, because there have to be dimensions for everything that plays a major role in your life. This brings reality into the dimension world and reminds us of the constants in the words.

Dimensions = what you want + what you need / constants of life

#23: I believe that there are four dimensions. All people and objects are 3-d things that are able to move or be used in some way. Most 2-d items are viewed. For example, reading words from a page is a 2-dimensional act. I do not know what has been proven, but I believe there could be a 4th dimension. As time continues, in the future, I believe there will be numerous amounts of dimensional things. The first dimension is a point, the second is a line, the third is objects or volume, and the fourth is time.

#24: There are two dimensions. One is 2D, like watching a movie. The other is 3D which is everyday life, like ourselves. There may be other dimensions we have not discovered. Heaven and hell may have totally different dimensions.

#25: That we know of, there are only three dimensions. An example of a one-dimensional figure is a straight line. An example of a 2-dimensional figure is a picture on paper. Lastly, an example of a 3-dimensional figure is a human. We know of only 3 dimensional figures, but it could be that there are even more dimensions. Maybe a 4-dimensional figure is somewhere in this universe or in another dimension. Maybe even a 10-dimensional figure. We really just don't know how many dimensions there are.

#26: The physical book itself is obviously 3-dimensional and the text is 2-dimensional. The characters could be 3-dimensional in the sense that they could be real people if they weren't fake and made-up. The author did grow up in the same time period; maybe he knew people like the people in the book. But I don't really know what is meant by dimensions.

#27: Okay, so there would be the dimensions literally according to scientific interpretation. I think dimensions can also be used as a metaphor for exploring layers of meaning in things. It's like if you take the literal interpretation of a story you understand the surface of it. However, if you notice patterns or suggestions or meanings you are penetrating into the dimension of meaning the author creates. I would say you usually have to go down layer by layer of understanding to get to the deepest or truest meaning. This means that you have to understand the different top layers of the story to put it all together.

[Above diagram: 1st dimension: literal meaning: "The car won the battle;" square surface; 2nd dimension: "Cat worked hard. Cat was brave;" layers of cube; 3rd dimension: "To win a victory takes bravery and hard work;" cube; 4th dimension: "Cube becomes idea in head;" Apply the understanding of the meaning to use in your own life or to help you understand something else.]

5th dimension: If you can evaluate the author's messages in the book, and use your own experiences to critique them, i.e. you already know enough about what they are trying to say enough to agree/disagree.

#28: Realistically, there are three dimensions in how literal an object can be seen. However, when you think about how one can perceive something, the dimensions can be defined differently. You can see something/someone as unimportant and not pay attention to it, in which case your reception would be one-dimensional. If you see something or someone as how it appears to be, and observe its outer characteristics (if regarding a person, then their outward identity and appearance), then your perception is two-dimensional. If you see the subject as more than just its outer appearance and actually search for deeper meaning within it or understand who it truly is (internal identity), you have a three-dimensional perception of it. Obtaining a three-dimensional perception is very difficult and would involve a great deal of observation of the subject until it is very familiar to you. In dealing with a person, you would need to know background information about him and his inner feelings to truly understand him.

The fourth dimension of time can be achieved after knowing that objects or person for a really long time and coming to a deeper level of understanding of and connection with it. Only then can you perceive this thing four-dimensionally.

perspectives on dimension

We live in 3-dimensions... with the added dimension of time making it four... or so it seems. Apparently, this answer is not as simple as it appears. We all can easily comprehend three dimensions. In geometry and art classes, we learned to draw cubes that replicated our experience of space on the flat plane of a paper.

Renaissance artists such as Lorenzo Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, and Donatello drew upon the optical analyses of Alhazen in order to represent a more genuine spatial (and visual) experience in paintings. Guiding the way towards a more realistic painting style, these artists also recognized the way that such spatial organization can drive the narrative of a painting. Using perspective can force the viewer's eye towards a particular part of an image. One of the most famous examples is da Vinci's The Last Supper wherein every element of the painting guides the viewer's focus towards Christ's head at the center of the composition... emphasizing his metaphorical, in addition to, his physical centrality.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper (1495-98)

Da Vinci also once said, "Perspective is the rein and rudder of painting." But back to our humanly experienced dimensions. We laymen may be satisfied living in three, even four, dimensions. However, physicists have a serious problem with only four. The problem begins with the forces that control our lives -- gravitational forces, electromagnetic forces, the weak force (radioactivity), and the strong force (prevents protons in center of atom from separating). Ok, so these forces all exist. So, what's the problem?

Well, the problem is that four dimensions are not enough to encapsulate how all these forces work together to create our reality. In his article on extra dimensions, Karl Kruszelnicki explains what happened next in order to try to resolve this dilemma:

...way back in the 1920s, Theodor Kaluza and Oskar Klein came up with the first theory that looked like it could combine the Gravity and Electromagnetic Forces. But their promising little theory assumed that the Universe had an extra dimension -- giving a total of five dimensions.

Now there's a third reason why we need a few extra dimensions. Our curiosity has been sparked because of strange results from recent experiments in accelerators where high-energy particles smash into each other. Thanks to these experiments, we have way too many sub-atomic particles. By the 1930s, the physicists had come up with a nice simple model of the atom. It looked a bit like our solar system where the planets orbit the Sun -- it had a central core with protons and neutrons, with a bunch of electrons whirling around it. This atom had only three sub-atomic particles -- the protons, the neutrons, and the electrons.

But since the 1930s, things have got way too messy. Today, we have found a few hundred sub-atomic particles. And they don't fit into a neat little system -- they're all over the place. But if you add in another seven extra space dimensions (all at right angles to each other), this mangled mess of particles gets a little neater.

Now our regular three space dimensions reach all the way to the edge of the Universe. But when the mathematicians looked at these extra dimensions, they found that some of them are 100 billion billion times smaller than the core of an atom. Even though they are space dimensions, they are as different from our regular space dimensions as is our time dimension.

With our current Physics, we have no way to get into these dimensions. In fact, it's probably a lot safer that way. Imagine if your regular walk to the corner shop was littered with extra dimensions and wormholes to Heaven Knows Where! You'd probably need more than a bus fare to get home.

Imagine indeed. And that is exactly what I asked my students one day for a journal write. "How many dimensions are there? Describe and explain them." I invited creativity and mind-expanding responses. And here is some of what I received from my 9th graders:

#1: There are two: ours -- the one we know as earth, life and society

     The other -- the exact opposite of what we know now as life.

     Everything is opposite. People's personalities; we write from right to left; life starts with death and old age and ends with youth. There are exceptions, though. People talk forward and walk forward because otherwise it would just be silly. The world is a mirror image of the opposite but what happens in it is reversed.

The only way to exit and enter them is when your opposite reaches the same age as you. For example, if you were to live to the age of 90, the only time you could cross over would be on your 45th birthday. [Student then included a little diagram.]

The only trouble is that within this year is the only time when you can switch back and forth with the help of a wormhole so BE CAREFUL! Don't stay longer than a year in the dimension you don't wish to stay in for the rest of your life, or the other half of your life. Wormholes never stay in the same spot. They are always moving! So if you wish to leave a dimension, look long and hard.

#2: In my opinion, there are 5 mathematical dimensions: length, width, height, depth, imagined dimension -- like when you think of something, there's something more to it than just the other four dimensions.

Although by definition, there are also non-mathematical dimension in which I believe... worldly dimensions:

Asgard: world of gods and heroes
Neflheim - world of ice and shadows
Hel - world of the dead
Earth
World of Fire
World of Water
World of lesser gods
World of Giants
World of the Elven people
Summerlands
Darklands
Polarlands
Shadowlands
Crossroads
World of Aether/Ether
Land of Control/Land of Dispersal (of Elements)
Land of Dreams
Land of Imagination
OtherLand/Negative Lands

#3: I believe there are two dimensions: one is a happy unrealistic dimension and another is a depression, bad work, no dreams dimension.

#4: There are 4 dimensions. The first dimension is a flat object: for instance a piece of paper. The second dimension in my eyes is just regular things, for example a water bottle. The third dimension is the dimension of things like a cube. I may be wrong but I think there are four dimensions. The fourth dimension is unknown. I believe that there are an unlimited amount of dimensions because we don't know what exists beyond Earth and where we have traveled in space. Then there is the question of the after-life. If there is a life in the afterworld, maybe that is its own dimension. This is something I have never really thought about or learned about. If you relate dimensions to the novel, Of Mice and Men, there are two emotional dimensions. One is where they are dreaming about future lives. The other is the true reality of their hard lives.

#5: In the world, there are four dimensions. With each dimension, things become closer to actual life and living things. The first dimension is flat, nothing, not real. It is just a picture on a piece of paper. The second dimension is still flat, but made to resemble something which is not. The third dimension has actual height and shape, but no life. In the third dimension, things are very simple; you can touch them at times, but there is still no life. We are in the fourth dimension. We are real living, moving, breathing things. We can reach out and touch something. We can feel the spray of water at the ocean's edge. The fourth dimension is real life and it is what we live and move in.

#6: Creatively, in terms of inception, there are so many dimensions. To me, a dimension is a way you look at something, like a point of view. So we have our own dimension -- our perceived reality and what we think of what we see. There are other dimensions besides our own, like another person's reality based on what they have learned, past experiences, and what they believe. Everyone has his own dimension, his own way of looking at the world and making sense of what he's seeing. Then there is actual reality, what is really happening which no one person can determine on his own. Reality is the truest, non-deluded dimension, though no one can see it. All people are biased with reality, even if they don't know it. It would take a group of people with different values and beliefs to try to find what is really happening, because a mixture of perceived reality might make the real reality. Everyone has his own dimension, a perceived reality, but there is one dimension that we are all a part of, even if no one can actually understand the actual reality.

#7: There are an infinite number of dimensions -- since we can only comprehend three, everyone assumes that time is the fourth. However, this is untrue. The first dimension is a line which only has length, not width. Then comes a geometric plane which has length and width but no depth. The third dimension is where we get depth, and the fourth is difficult to explain. [diagram follows] Basically, each dimension adds a sort of 'bridge' between two of the same dimension which is what causes that extra layer. Since we live in a world without a fourth dimension, it's difficult to imagine this sort of 'bridge,' but I like to think of it as playing a game of chess and turning over the chessboard to find a separate game of chess being played on the other side. Or like the front door of your house leading to someone else's living room instead of outside. Going by this theory, by 'attaching' the two fourth dimensions, you would get the fifth dimension, and so on. Therefore, you could go on infinitely discovering more and more dimensions until you either run out of paper, life, or sanity. [Another diagram... captioned with "The fifth dimension: Don't get me started on the sixth.]

#8: Realistic: I feel that there are four dimensions, like in math (point, line, shape (cube), time.)

Creative: I feel that there are dimensions to everything. A story has dimension. A story has an obvious plot-line; then there are characters' emotions, and then there is a deeper meaning to the plot that carries an idea, a concept, or parallels a real event (or a made-up one.) That especially happens in creative writing because the author has space to change and add and remove parts, people, or ideas. In non-fiction writing, it is much more difficult to do so because the author has to stick to facts.

I feel like humans have dimensions as well. The most basic being their appearance, then the physical emotions they portray, then their 'external' emotion (the emotion or tone they give off), and then even more complex is the emotion they feel inside that only a few outsiders know of, and the even more complex dimension of humans is the emotion that we don't know what it is caused by... the type of emotion and feeling that builds up for no reason or when we "get/feel/" a vibe from someone else, when we feel uncomfortable for no apparent reason. Lastly, the most complex is the emotion in humans that is so deep down in us, underneath all our other layers, hidden from ourselves, so that we don't even know if it exists.

#9: 1. dot
     2. a line, has length, no height
     3. our dimension: height, length, depth
     4. time
     5. Narnia
     6. Star Wars
     7. Fight Club
     8. Jurassic Park
     9. Halo universe
    10. The Matrix

[5-10 are parenthesized with a comment: "seems legit"]

#10: I think there are 9 dimensions: nothing, length, width, depth, linear on a timeline, different possibilities on that timeline, different timelines, backwards toward within those possibilities in those timelines, difference universes, multiples

#11: There are many dimensions that we can use. Some dimensions are width, height, volume, length, area, perimeter, circumference, etc. Dimensions are hard to describe but they are important too in that they help humans live and play a huge role in how much humans and technology have developed. Without dimensions, life would be much harder for the living things on Earth and we probably wouldn't be as developed as we are without these dimensions.

#12: There are many different concepts about dimensions and their existence. Some people, in a mathematical sense, believe that the three dimensions are x, y, and z. Other people believe there are four dimensions that are represented by a point, line, cube, and time. In a literary sense, time and space are the two main dimensions, though some people branch off into other areas like the mind. My point is that a dimension can be something that measures length or something that represents space. It all depends on what you want to believe. Dimensions aren't something proven; you can't create the 4th dimension in math and you can't physically prove time or space. They aren't facts, just concepts that we believe in. Dimensions are almost like a trick of the mind. We exist in space; we live in space, but other than that it is just present in our lives. Space needs us like we need it to survive. In order to be space, something or someone must exist in it and bring it to reality. It is like this with all the dimensions, even the mathematical concepts. The so-called '4th dimension' is a common idea. However, we've never seen it and no term of it can exist on Earth. Dimensions are playing with our minds. If we wanted to we could just say everything significant is a dimension. It is all up to us and our imagination. Dimensions are objects we cannot prove; they are something that we can create and destroy in our minds; however, most of all dimensions are something that impact us. They may be a trick of the mind but we can only exist if they do. Dimensions are a part of our lives and we can't change that concept, just alter it till we feel satisfied.

#13: I could really take this in any direction and choose any answer. However, I'm going to totally choose something that probably won't make any sense. I'm going to say that there is only one dimension. That dimension is size. Size includes everything in its category. It has width, length, height, surface area, perimeter, area... and so on.

#14: Dimensions are never-ending. There are countless things that could be in a dimension. The way I think of dimensions is that they are basically universes that are similar to ours, but certain things in the dimension we live in are different or there are more things or less in a different one. Dimensions are very complicated: something like gravity is in ours and not in numerous others.

#15: Dimension is a relative term. It could be something far off in outer space, like an ultra-dimension, or something used commonly by many mathematicians. I think in the math world, there are 4 dimensions. The first describes a line that can extend infinitely in its 2 directions. The second is a plane. It has an infinite area which is made up of its length and width. The third dimension consists of length, height, and width. It is something solid and tangible. The so-called 4th dimension consists of time. Time governs over life, causing us to wake up the time we do, sleep the time we do, and die. In the 4th dimension, time changes things. It transforms a cube into something else. On the other hand, dimension can be referred to something that exists as we do, maybe even in the same space, but is not known to us because our dimension does not correspond with theirs.

#16: There are 4 dimensions and they describe where you or something else is. The first is length, the second is width, and the third is height. That's why 3D movies are called 3D because you can see length, width, and height. But two people can be in the same spot, but just not at the same time...which is why the 4th dimension is time. If you have a description of all of these put together, you know exactly where something is.

#17: For us, in our world, there are three dimensions that are described by the x, y, and z axes in space. Everything in space can be described by one or more ordered triples (x, y, z) which determine its location. A "dimension" is how many times a point is replicated and all of the corresponding points are connected like so.

However, since we have never encountered the fourth (or more) dimensions, we say that is does not exist because we cannot perceive or imagine how the figure would behave.

Flatland is a book that illustrates this point, because it involves a two-dimensional square living on a plane with other polygons and is visited by a sphere from the 3-D world who pulls him out of the plane and shows him what the next dimension is, and when the square is disbelieving, he is shown a point in its own world, unable to recognize the existence of anyone else since the world has no dimensions, and a line with people on it that cannot imagine the plane world that the square lives in. When the square tells his people about the third dimension, he is considered insane and is locked away for life. This shows how we have been conditioned to be unable to imagine a 4-D world, and even reject the idea because it does not make sense to us. However, if we look at figures in other (fewer) dimensions, we think it would be logical to explain the third, second, or first dimension to them, but in reality, it would be like someone trying to explain the 4-D world to us -- since we really do not know its properties and how it behaves, it would be futile.

It would be possible for there to be infinite dimensions, each looking down on those with fewer, and believing that they are so narrow-minded not to be able to see the simpleness... if their dimension was n, the n + 1th dimension's geometry... but, in reality, they are also being just as narrow-minded for not realizing the n + 2th dimension. It is easy to understand the world with fewer dimensions than yours, but it is difficult to understand, or even verify the existence of a dimension past yours.

Kids are fantastic thinkers and their imaginations are boundless. Would that we all think as creatively. There will be a part II with more of these entries to come tomorrow... a double the dimension, double the pleasure tomorrow's and tomorrow's tomorrow's theme. :)