Juxtaposition of Space

Before I comment on this week’s readings, I wanted to touch on one of the articles from last week because I found an interesting connection with one of this week’s articles in regards to a similar type of space examined through different lenses. The article “I love being in the garden: enchanting encounters in everyday life” reminded me of when I was a child. Having lived in the southwest my entire life, my only exposure to big, green, beautiful gardens was through reading books, like The Secret Garden; through my reading and imagination, I found an enchanting escape into an unknown world. Throughout my childhood, gardens continued to hold a mystery and fascination for me. As I read the article discussing gardens and everyday encounters within them, I was reminded of an experience I had, as an adult, when I travelled to the Loire Valley in France and wandered through the lovely, breathtaking gardens there, especially at Villandry. After I arrived there, I explored for hours and could not immerse myself enough in the magical surroundings; I felt like I had as a child, reading about mysterious, unexplored gardens. I was delighted with the sights and smells and discovery of this new place; I felt free, peaceful, and curious. Reading this article, I discovered that when the author quotes Foucault as describing the garden as that “other place”; and Whatmore’s description as “a hybrid space, a coming together of culture and nature,” my time in this garden was an intersection of time—present and past—coming together through my senses and my memories. This different type of space, which has existed for centuries in different capacities, becomes a part of people’s everyday lives “a sensuous space with emotion.” For those who have gardens, no matter the size, of their own, they experience it as a space for pleasurable work, a daily reprieve from stress, and for me, who only visits one of these enchanting places on rare occasion, it is a space for imagination and memory to coincide in recalling a ritual through a childhood escape.
After I read “september is not to be trusted,” I found myself thinking of this other type of nature, not one where people find peace and calm but one where people find chaos and fight for survival. The farmer, as she fights against nature for the survival of her farm, recalls powerful memories from childhood and her “imagination runs wild”; some of these memories evoke fear and dread of what has occurred in the past, and yet, she finds strength from her family’s past—she “clings to a spirit of survival.” While the people of the previous article find their everyday lives in gardens stress-free and controllable, this woman finds that “nature is gradually disconnected from [her] daily practices.” She cannot control the elements that will determine her survival. She acknowledges that some of her memories are “scarred” by disaster as were the “old-timers,” but she also knows she will have happy memories as well. Her connection with nature will provide both. Throughout history, both of these spaces in nature serve different purposes and both are needed for survival in different ways; however, each may have a similar history—allowing for the recall of memories, creation of stories, and practice of ancient, everyday rituals.

Kristin