Taped to the wall above my desk is a promotional postcard from Poetry Magazine. A quote from the editor, Christian Wiman, reads: “Let us remember that in the end we go to poetry [or art] for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both. “ It feels increasingly challenging to fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them. Robert Pogue Harrison argues that Western civilization promotes ‘institutions of dislocation [I would add disconnection] in every dimension of both social and cultural existence’, and this has led to an ‘aggravated confusion about what it means to dwell on the earth’(198-9). In attempts to negotiate this confusion, I am exploring ways of knowing, documenting, sensitizing, and measuring to enrich my understanding of the space between myself and what we have come to accept as ‘the natural.’ To “more fully inhabit” seems to necessitate firsthand experience and a heightened sensory awareness of surroundings. This idea of full inhabitation is something I am exploring in my work. I would like to consider, speculate, and reflect on larger issues using my particular relationship to the natural world as a point at which to begin. I am grounding my investigations in two sites, which comprise one place for me. One site is my backyard from ages three to eighteen, and resides in my memory. The other site is a few blocks away from my current San Francisco apartment and is also functioning as a surrogate for that initial stomping ground, and the site for my project field research.

Wednesday, April 4

Day 2: Psychic Weapons



Walking on MLK drive and thinking again about fear in the forest. I am remembering an unusual element in my suburban backyard. On my outings I would find things such as an arrangement of sticks for a fire never lit, a red flannel blanket, and a shelter fashioned from young saplings and tarps. Happening upon these camps brought a shock and a sudden sense of being watched. I felt he was omnipresent. I never knew where I might encounter him. He seemed to know this place as well or better than I did. I never got a good look at him, but saw him retreating into the woods one day at dusk. I wondered who he was, and why he was living in our backyard. I wanted to see his face, and wondered why I had been warned of him.

The tree house of my childhood functioned both as a sanctuary and a fort. In defense against enemies imagined and real, I constructed a set of weapons. Among them were a bow and several arrows made of the straightest sticks available whittled to the sharpest points I could manage. The bow was fashioned from a curved stick and a rubber band. The slingshot was similarly made using a Y-shaped stick with pebbles for ammunition. I hid these weapons in a hole dug at the base of the tree, covered with a piece of plywood. This defense system was completely illogical and non-functional, as I was unable to access them from my advantaged position in the tree. Perhaps more importantly, the bow didn’t shoot the arrows with enough force to deter anyone. I realize now what I was doing was creating a set of psychic or symbolic weapons. For me they functioned as a defense system insofar as I knew they were there. That I suppose was enough. That representation of security, preparedness and independence was just as useful to me buried as it was up in the tree house positioned for fire.
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