Howth—Sailboats and Seafood

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Today, we travelled to Howth. It is a coastal city, mostly surrounded by water. It’s not quite an island. Howth is beautiful. Our goal for our journey was to hike along the cliffs along the east coast of the peninsula and eventually end up at the summit. The views were incredible, hard to take in and process. At the summit, we had lunch at a place called Gaffney’s Summit Inn. The seafood was fresh, and the service was exceptional. There’s nothing like reward for a bit of hard work. Our hike wasn’t easy. It seems that people from all over walk along the trail and dine at the pub. Even our server appeared to be from somewhere else in Europe. This little coastal town must attract and entertain tourists year-round. The scenery, views, and climate (at least as we experienced it today) create a welcoming atmosphere, constructing an interesting and diverse place. Howth is a place of destination. It attracts hikers, academics, lovers, and the like. As hunger began to set in, the Summit Inn became an even more attractive destination.

As we finished up lunch and headed down to sea-level, we saw beautiful houses and freshly manicured lawns and shrubbery. Eventually, we found the water’s edge and all sat staring out into the Irish Sea. When we first arrived to the cliffs, I noticed the sailboats harbored in the middle of town. Now, after a long walk and satisfying meal, I contemplate the uses of these boats and the lives of their captains. Howth is a place of occupation. We walked around where the boats were docked, passing piles of empty sea nets and crab cages. I wonder about the day’s catch. Did the day yield a successful bounty or did the fishers return empty-handed and disheartened? The budding greenery encroaching on the sailboats creates an interesting visual representation of the relationship between the natural and the human.

 

Summit Inn—Howth

 

Sailboats in Howth

 

Foghorn Howthorn

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It is astounding how different a place Howth was from when we arrived early afternoon and departed late evening. Our arrival was greeted by a fog that made everything past a few hundred feet nonexistent in our minds. Mist swept down from The Summit as we made our ascent to the top. The higher we climbed the more the fog seemed to clear as the sun attempted to make it’s way through the clouds. When we returned to the small town resting at the bottom of the cliff walk it had become a completely different place. You never would have thought a few hours ago the entire harbor was shrouded with a dense fog. I also could not believe how close we were to Ireland’s Eye, which before had been no where insight but now was only a couple hundred kilometers away. I have been extremely grateful for the fortunate weather that I know will not last much longer, but we were very lucky to see such a magnificent place under such unique circumstances. The patterns of nature, while unpredictable, greatly influence one’s perception of place. At first Howth seemed like a mysterious region of Dublin with a dangerous cliff made more perilous by the impeding fog. But after it cleared, the entire town seemed more cheery and a couple seals even poked their heads out in the harbor. While this was the same place regardless of whether or not the sun was shining, my perception and mood was altered by the drastic change in weather. I have to say I like Howth Harbor, rain or shine.

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The Irish Eye

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A Place at State

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Every time I pass the Art and Humanities steps it reminds me of my first semester at Georgia State University. When I first transferred to GSU I was frazzled by the immense size of this urban campus. One of the easiest, most central locations for me to find was the Art and Humanities building so my friend and I would constantly meet on those stairs after class. One of my first classes ever taken at Georgia State was also located within this building so I would walk up those steps each day I was on campus. Although I have not had a class within that building for a few semesters now, I still use it as a chief meeting place whenever I want to find someone on campus. The stairs are very prominent because of their immense size and close proximity to a majority of Georgia State buildings. Most people know exactly where you are talking about if you mention them no matter how long they have walked the streets of Georgia State’s campus. If am waiting between classes sometimes I will sit on the outside stairs to pass the time. I also often use the Arts and Humanities buildings as a point of reference to find other buildings on campus. For example, I had never been to Dahlberg Hall so I traced a route using the Art and Humanities as my starting place. My mother received her degree from the Georgia State College of Arts and Humanities, so this building also reminds me of her.

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Tacos, trees, and leaves

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home

My first place from home is my parents’ house. They bought it a month after I was born twenty-one years ago. Everything I have ever been and most of everything I am now is traceable in this house. I have a story for every square inch of the floor and every record on my shelf. I grew up there and never called another place home.

I planted the tree in the picture in my front yard with my dad and sister when I was four. I remember it every time the leaves change into these colors in the fall. I know that I can come home at any time and it will smell like my mom’s favorite cinnamon candle in the foyer just like it has for as long as I can remember. I know that I can go to the closet in the hallway and find notches in the door frame to show how much my sister and I grew.

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Coffee shops and rooftops

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ebrik

I am from a tiny, tiny town in Northwest Georgia. Nothing terribly exciting happens too often, and I can’t go to the grocery store without seeing a dozen people I know.

I transferred to GSU in the fall of 2015. I found Georgia State — well, Atlanta in general — to be overwhelming my first few months here for obvious reasons. I’m not used to being in a crowd and not knowing everybody’s name and face.

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Pooh at GSU.

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13334822_1040305986062794_2146213958_o This guy scared me hardcore the first time I saw him.   I happen to be from a very small town, so my first couple of weeks walking around the Georgia State University campus were spent frantically staring all around me, searching for the murderers that my parents had assured me I was going to find.  I expected crazy people… not a life size cardboard cut out of Pooh Bear staring at me from an office building (where I often saw very well dressed people having meetings).  Seeing Pooh became something that I would look forward to and seek out in order to feel more confident with school.  When I was little, Pooh was my hero, so seeing him while on my way to my Legal Environment of Business final made me feel better, even if I was still terrified of the big city.

I’m a Swinger.

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13334389_1040305906062802_1882255281_o The year I was born, my grandparents bought their house (which my dad later owned).  We went there every weekend and fairly often throughout the week.  Right down the street from this house there was this little park with this swing set and I’m pretty sure that I spent more time on that swing than I did sleeping.  I actually went enough that I developed calluses on my hands, arms, and legs where the swing would touch me, and at one point the swing seat tore through my jeans and cut my leg (which freaked out my grandmother).  I used to go there and sing or make up stories for hours at a time.  Looking back, I really have no idea why the neighbors didn’t tell my grandparents to lock me up, as I would sing loudly (and horridly) and actually reenact the stories in my head out loud (so I basically yelled at the train for hours on end).  Really though, going to the swing was basically my therapy as a young person.  I was going through some pretty messed up stuff at home, but I could always just be alone and deal with it at the park.  It is one of the things I miss most about my hometown.

Windy Ridge Farm

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Farm Picture

Home is a difficult concept for me. I’ve moved a lot throughout my life and there’s never really been one physical location that I could point to and call “home.” Most of my definition of the concept of home revolves around identity rather than place. Wherever my family is, that’s where I call home, and the places that I most strongly associate with family are the places most likely to be identified as home.

For years, Windy Ridge Farm in Union, West Virginia was the place I looked to as home. It was my mother’s parents home and, while my mother and I only ever lived there intermittently, my grandparents had lived there for decades by the time I was born. It was a reliable place—a place that I thought I could always go back to. Its rolling limestone hills, stolid cattle, and brilliant autumns were there for me any time I turned my back on a new old place of residence.

My grandfather fell ill in my late teen years and he and my grandmother moved into a new house in Charleston, West Virginia so that he could be close to a hospital. He died in that house and, though she maintained ownership of Windy Ridge, my grandmother never moved back to it. Over the course of about a decade, the farm fell into heavy disrepair. Every time I visited it it looked more and more like a funhouse mirror image of home. Last year my grandmother sold the farm to an out-of-stater.

The last thing my family did before leaving after packing our belongings was say goodbye to my great-grandparents graves in a cemetery looking backward onto the farm. They had only really lived in Union for a short time before dying. They had essentially moved there to be buried there. Close to family. Their gravestones were the only ones in the entire town that belonged to relatives of mine. It really put the concept of “home” and “belonging” into perspective for me when I saw their little graves surrounded by row after row of the same names that had nothing to do with mine. To me, Windy Ridge was the most permanent origin I could point back to. To the people of Union, my family had nothing to do with that old farm. They were a blip on the radar. Here and then gone. And my great-grandparents saw it as the end of their lives. Place is Proteus. It changes constantly for every person looking at it and no person could ever agree with another about what they’re looking at, even if they think that they’re looking at home.

GSU Writing Studio

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T

Writing Studio Front Desk; Image taken from GSU Writing Studio Website

he Georgia State University Writing Studio is located on the 24th floor the of the Park Place building, which was formerly known as the Sun Trust Building as it provided office space for the Sun Trust Banking Conglomerate before being leased to Georgia State. The building’s history as a bank provides a great deal of interest to the space inside of it as there are many incongruous (but therefor interesting) elements to the building. There is, for instance, an old bank vault in the basement of Park Place. I have been tempted on more than one occasion to tape a sign reading “problem student containment area” to its entrance. These incongruities create a depth to the experience of place in Park Place that you cannot obtain elsewhere on campus.

The thing that makes the Writing Studio my favorite location on GSU’s campus is the way that the repurposing of the former bank location has unearthed a new value in the location’s design. I do not explicitly know what the GSU Writing Studio location’s original purpose was but, given its size and relative elevation, I assume it must have served as a meeting room. The windows and the openness of the location, which might have once facilitated discussion between large numbers of people now facilitate one on one discussion and provide a positive setting that students can access to discuss methods of improving their writing with tutors. While there are many reasons why I like the Writing Studio, this repurposing and re-realization is the primary reason I like the Writing Studio as a location.

Crossing the Line

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Ocoee Street After reading Creswell’s chapter, I realize that this is more of a space than a place.  My hope was to get a picture from the middle of the road, but the noon traffic made that an impossibility.  Ocoee Street is a space of movement that defies pausing.  Instead, it is a boundary between two very important places in my life.  It is the movement across this line that lends the road significance.  In the foreground of the photo is a sign for Centenary Ave.  This is my childhood street, the neighborhood I grew up in.  In the background, across the border, is Lee University, where my parents have both worked for over 40 years and where I went to college.  Ocoee Street is the demarcation line between these two places and carries layers of significance for me, my family, and my community.

As a kid, Ocoee Street was literally the boundary line.  I had a lot of freedom and was often allowed to roam with my friends.  But there was one rule: do not cross Ocoee Street.  Of course, as I grew older, I was allowed to cross, but by then it had, for me, come to be a symbol of adulthood.  My freshman year of college, I was determined to move onto campus.  Yes, the dorm I moved to was about three blocks from my parents’ house, but the move across Ocoee Street personally marked my transition into independence and maturity.

For my family, this road also delineates the private from the public.  Centenary Ave. is “home”, while Lee is “work.”  Most people have to drive between work and home; the boundary line between the two is broad and may contain a variety of other significant places.  For my parents, this road is the commute.  It is a distinct line between the public and the private.  I also suspect that this is part of why I was not allowed to cross the road as a child.  I belonged in the private sphere of my parents’ lives and could not just show up at their offices any time I wanted.

Finally, this is a boundary line for my community.  Although Lee University plays a large part in our city’s economy, there is a great deal of tension between Lee and the rest of the town.  You may notice that the top of the street sign in the photo marks Centenary Avenue as part of the Historic District.  As Lee grew, the community became increasingly concerned about demarcating where the university could and could not expand.  The creation of the Historic District was one of many attempts to keep the school at bay.  In this way, the boundary line has caused complications for myself and my family.  As members of the Lee community and the Historic Neighborhood Association, my parents have had to work hard to walk the tight-rope of line between the two places and their separate interests.  When I was in college, people around town would often ask me if I went to Lee.  It seems like an innocent question, but I understood the underlying tensions implicit in their asking.  I would often reply, “Yes, but I’m also from here.”  Sometimes, that answer sufficed.  “I am one of you,” it said.  Sometimes, though, it was returned with a scowl.  To some, it meant “I am a traitor.”

Although Lee continues to expand, it has never crossed Ocoee Street.  It is a complicated victory,though, as the expansion tends then to raze the lower income neighborhoods north of campus instead.  Navigating these various tensions and understanding the meanings of the places that I inhabit and how to modify my behavior crossing over boundary lines has been an intrinsic part of my upbringing.  It also gives meaning to this between space, even it one can’t stop and appreciate it.