steelridge58
Regular
397 messages
joined Mar 2008
I tend to circle back to certain things quite often—it’s actually part of my handle and reflects the kind of books I truly love.
One such book is The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard.
It’s just one of those inexhaustible works where, every single time I pick it up again, I feel like I’m discovering something entirely new.
Just yesterday, I was mentioning my hometown in an email 😉 and how much of a piece of my heart stays there, feeling like no other place could ever really take its spot.
Then, as if on cue, I found myself returning to this book today, and because of that wonderful thing called forgetting, it felt almost like reading it for the first time, leading me straight to these passages:
"The childhood home is a lived-in house. Its intimate values are scattered throughout, difficult to pin down, always subject to shifting dialectics.
Think of all those honest stories about childhood—how they tell us that if a child doesn't have their own room, they simply retreat to a little corner to sulk!
But beyond mere memory, the childhood home is physically etched into our very being; it is a collection of organic habits. Even after twenty years away, despite the nameless steps of other houses, we will find ourselves mirroring the reflex of that 'first staircase,' never stumbling over a slightly raised step. The entire essence of the house dissolves into our own being. With that same instinctive motion, we would push open a creaking door and head toward the old attic in the dark. We carry within us the exact movement and feeling required for even the smallest latch that needs unfastening.
The houses we inhabit later undoubtedly wear down our movements into the mundane routines of everyday life. But there is a profound sense of wonder when we return to that old house after decades of wandering, only to realize that our finest, most primal movements have suddenly surged back to life, still perfectly intact. In a sense, the childhood home writes a hierarchy of living into us; we are essentially a diagram of functions within that specific house, and every other home we enter is merely a variation on that original theme. To call it a 'habit' feels far too clinical to describe this passionate connection of a body that never forgets a home it can never truly leave."
The book itself is a phenomenological exploration of poetry, delving into the philosophical and lyrical layers of our world—life, creativity, the phenomenon, and the often-overlooked or dismissed soul. It provides the initial momentum for any great work, acting as the spark where the spirit begins to shape imagination; the dialectic between inspiration and talent only becomes clear when you consider both poles—the soul and the spirit—alongside logos, the essence of what makes us human, and imagination, which is perhaps the greatest force in human nature. I honestly can't recommend it enough.
And here is one more little quote that feels perfectly on-topic:
"Any reader with even a modicum of passion simultaneously fuels and suppresses the desire to be a writer. When a page is read that is simply too beautiful, modesty stifles that urge.
But the desire is reborn. In any case, every reader who revisits a work they love knows that those favorite pages touch them deeply."
