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April 23, 2005
amalgamation
i posted this (xp to lj) a handful of days ago, when i was starting to think about these things i didn't read nearly enough of for lwp's class. i still haven't--instead i've read the whole next book too quickly, and already gotten too far behind to take a reasonable stab at the one supposed to be coming after that. it's too fast, and too dizzy. before i lose our entire conversation about blending, though, i thought i'd move this over here, record it where the nerdspeak's meant to live. i'm not sure it says much of anything at all, but i hope it will remind me of the pictures these ideas make in my mind, of the monk's journey, of what i almost understood and might have made use of if we'd stood still to look at it for longer than a glance.
sometimes for no particular reason you remember something. like you take three steps out the front door, and you're on the sidewalk, passing by budding tulips, between two wooden houses, and you have this flash back to somewhere else, somewhere with nothing at all to do with front doors, sidewalks, tulips, wooden houses. this time it was a slightly dark room with a bright world outside, a counter someone stands on the other side of to find things for you, show you things, take your money. a counter with brochures and maps on it, as at a travel plaza, and small stands or baskets with other things--sunscreened lip balm, mini-mag-lites, mosquito-repelling wrist-bands. i glanced around quickly, before the picture faded, before my next foot touched down, but i wasn't fast enough; this morning's world came back and left me only with a blend.
possible memory 1: the camp store/rental place at pohick bay regional park where paul scored roger & i a pair of canoes to take us & some gypsy's dog on a bald-eagle-sighting cruise in 2000(?)
possible memory 2: the park store/rental place at kejimkujik national park in nova scotia where brian & dave & i went paddling around the mist in search of islands in 1999(?)
possible memory 3: back at the camp store/rental place at pohick bay, where terry and i were sent to check out the park's goodness-for-camping-parties potential for meg and scott in 1997(?)
in the blend (Fauconnier and Turner's terminology), the counter is the same (matching connection). the maps are different, but look the same from several feet away (counterpart connection). the light through the windows should feel different but doesn't stand out clearly as different enough (generic space)--it was colder in nova scotia, physical-climate anyway, although the mental was warm enough. the doors are different--the one that in woodbridge leads to the back room with the piles of paperwork and keys on hooks in jakes' landing leads to some visitor-center room with birds' eggs on display (completion). what makes it impossible for me to separate them now, in addition to not turning fast enough in the memory-flash to see who i was with, is (the emergent structure of) what they had in common, the sense of adventures pending, of being in safe but uncertain hands, of being a little lost a lot too far from home.
listening to:
Posted by ttobryan at April 23, 2005 02:57 PM
Comments
Your introduction reminded me of how I used to feel after nights in my undergraduate classes. I found the perfect metaphor for that feeling - moments when I believed I was on the verge of a great sunesis, and I wanted to freeze frame the world while my very small brain whirred and churned and reached for that destination. It was always, and still is, a pursuit I am certain I can continue when I leave the room, only to discover that it is all missing when I sit down to capture it, vaporized by the air beyond the classroom door.
It's like fireflies on a dark summer night - a thousand points of light catching me in an illusion of grand beauty, but as I reach out to grasp any one point, it fades from view - an elusive fragment of a complex whole continually pulling me forward and upward, but never quite lighting the way.
Posted by: Chris Geyer at April 24, 2005 01:21 PM