Pushed into Earth by warped space, we stay on our planet. Is there an analog for our emotional attachment to place?
We could argue that we acquire an affinity for place through experience, making our attachment an inside-out psychic phenomenon. Preferences might completely control us. But we could just as easily argue that place exerts a force on us. What accounts for our affinity for new places? “This is beautiful.” Or, simply, “Wow!”
All five senses are involved in our attitude toward place, and memory plays its role in our wanting to return to a “favorite” place. But those new places? And on first look? Step to the edge of the North Rim for the first time to look at the canyon. Walk into a bed and breakfast in Charleston, Savannah, or New Orleans. What pushes us to the place? What force is at work?
We could also argue that first looks are incomplete looks. All great restaurants have garbage cans out back. A chip in the third step is not the first thing we see when we encounter a wide, spiraling staircase in a hotel or mansion. Seeing the chip comes later, and it can have one of two effects: The imperfection endears us to the staircase because it tells a tale, or it bothers us because it ruins an ideal stair.
Revisiting places puts memory to work exerting its own force on our affinity or repulsion. But those first encounters? Memory serves to connect what we were to where we are, but in those first encounters, there is no memory of being there, save the rare instances when parahippocampal and perirhinal cortexes provide us with the feeling of déjà vu.
Endearment to and repulsion by place appear to be the work of either or both of two forces: The force of memory and an unknown exterior force, a kind of dark emotional energy.
We could argue that we acquire an affinity for place through experience, making our attachment an inside-out psychic phenomenon. Preferences might completely control us. But we could just as easily argue that place exerts a force on us. What accounts for our affinity for new places? “This is beautiful.” Or, simply, “Wow!”
All five senses are involved in our attitude toward place, and memory plays its role in our wanting to return to a “favorite” place. But those new places? And on first look? Step to the edge of the North Rim for the first time to look at the canyon. Walk into a bed and breakfast in Charleston, Savannah, or New Orleans. What pushes us to the place? What force is at work?
We could also argue that first looks are incomplete looks. All great restaurants have garbage cans out back. A chip in the third step is not the first thing we see when we encounter a wide, spiraling staircase in a hotel or mansion. Seeing the chip comes later, and it can have one of two effects: The imperfection endears us to the staircase because it tells a tale, or it bothers us because it ruins an ideal stair.
Revisiting places puts memory to work exerting its own force on our affinity or repulsion. But those first encounters? Memory serves to connect what we were to where we are, but in those first encounters, there is no memory of being there, save the rare instances when parahippocampal and perirhinal cortexes provide us with the feeling of déjà vu.
Endearment to and repulsion by place appear to be the work of either or both of two forces: The force of memory and an unknown exterior force, a kind of dark emotional energy.
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