Place

Place.

Where you are. What you see. Where you stand. A sense of place.

I remember as a child the moment I realized how much the place a person was born in dictates their life. The places they go, the sights they see and people they meet and become friends wth and marry. Things that shape their lives.

The opportunities and influences that happen to be in the same place they end up.

Moving far away is a big deal.

Culture.

I guess that’s what culture is, I eventually thought. What’s nearby. Culture was a very difficult concept for me to grasp. Isn’t everybody unique?

Finally understanding this helped me learn to explain that this means that although in Canada violence isn’t as bad overall as in some other parts of the world, it doesn’t mean the people in Canada are deeply any better than people born somewhere else. It just means things are easier for us than it is for them. Maybe that overall people around have made it easier to be peaceful.

We cannot take all the credit for ourselves, and should not judge the people in or coming from other places so harshly as people often do.

Art. ‘Arts and Culture’.

What does art have to do with culture? I asked.

What you see. The shapes, the foods and smells that have become familiar, and natural enough to grow from. Often dictated by materials. The natural resources in your general place. What is not so hard to find there.

Is that why certain colours become associated with certain cultures? Because that is what people had most available to make paints and dyes?

Maybe their yellow stains a different colour over time than some other places yellow. Or maybe they use so much red-orange because of all the iron in the soil, it is so available.

Opportunity.

Moving far away is a really, really big deal.

It takes control beyond what was given. I think that’s why I have always felt obligated to move far away someday, at least for a little while.

I see why people see it as an accomplishment to leave your hometown and to not marry someone you went to high school with. Which is sad for people who marry their high school sweetheart, because it doesn’t mean their love must any less real, but it sounds like some people assume it does.

Like the art and shapes and smells and colours that become a base for  your own art to grow from in all the ways it is alike and all the ways it is different.

All the ways it is alike and all the ways it is different.

Like the paintings and the music you come to love, I suppose it could become the same way with the people and traits you find beautiful and the things you come to love.

What has been given the time to settle inside you deeply, and then what has come to grow to be alike it or different. Though sometimes people do resent what is there.

I won’t blame people for thinking I’m ugly-looking.

How big does a place have to be for people to say it has its own culture?

A Sense of Place.

Does that mean having a feel for your location and the vibe there, or your own belonging or purpose? I suppose they can affect eachother.

~Break~

Sensodyne toothpaste
Razors with the gel strip
Lemon extract

In my culture, traditionally people write grocery lists on very oblong pads of paper with a magnet on the back to put it on the fridge.

Real estate agents make them a lot around here.

I imagine this is the case all over the place, but come to think of it, it’s not.

Not everywhere has grocery stores.

~unbreak~

“Do you like arts and culture, or science and technology?”
“I guess my favourites are arts and science. And English.”
“Oh, that’s arts.”
“Why is English ‘arts’?”

Language.

In English, for all the types of love we just say “love”. You could say “affection”, but depending on the context it could sound funny or awkward or bold to use that word.

(Perhaps is how English is art. It may be correct but it feels different.)

And it can feel different to people based on the influence from their place. English in England versus English in Canada.

(There is ‘arts and culture’.)

In Anishinabemowin, the word for “old man“ is the same way you would say “earth caretaker.”

That changes the way you not only consciously think about things, but the very way you see or perceive the world to be. Naturally, using this word comes the understanding that it is mankind’s responsibility to take care of the earth.

Built-in understanding through language.

Place. The sounds you often hear, and words people say around you a lot.

Sounds like family.

I heard that when babies babble it helps them learn to pronounce words, but that as time goes on they stop making the sounds they don’t hear around them.

We were born so much more the same than we often realize when we are grown.

And then there are the moments of realization I still get in a room of adult humans, realizing that every single one of us were once infants.

But that is a thought for another time.