Spaces

There are many places we live in, work in, have fun in, suffer in. There are cities, villages, fields, seas. What I have realised recently, though, is that within those places, there are also spaces. And it is those spaces that hold the real meaning of our memories and reactions. It is the spaces, not the places, that matter.

For example, I live in London (UK). Now, London is a huge city and, more importantly, the only one of its kind I like (at least, of all those I have visited or live in). It is full of different nationalities, flavours, architecture, culture... and also of racial disagreements, bad housing, lack of manners, dirty streets. Yet, when I say I like or love London, depending on the mood, I mostly relate to specific spaces of London. So, what do I love about London? The South Bank on a stroll, the lower floor of the Royal Festival Hall where you can see people practise dance, the museums on a school day, the Candid Arts Café and Kenwood House for a cup of tea, my friends' homes, the hills of Hampstead Heath and Greenwich Park,... Specific experiences of spaces that have meaning in my existence, reducing the urban sprawl to personalised moments.

Initially, I thought we, as humans, would compartmentalise the aspects of cities to manageable portions in order to successfully relate to otherwise hostile, over-stimulating environments. But nope, I have tried it out on other settings, and still the mold fits. Not only for smaller cities of, say, under half a million people, but even to villages of only a few hundred inhabitants. In fact, and please feel free to disagree, I believe this tendency to identify with only certain spaces applies to our very own houses.

Think of it, maybe move around your home: does each step feel the same, or do you feel the same in each bit of the place? Beyond the different uses of the different rooms, do you relate more to one chair than another, one window than the next? Just in this room, I can tell how working on the computer at the desk, on the floor or the bed have completely distinct connotations - killing time, feeling happy, and being moody, respectively. And this, despite the fact that there is no clear difference between them beyond those of the space in my mind as linked to the space in the room.

Of course, this might seem irrelevant or even deterministic for most of us, since we have to live in certain houses, work in certain rooms/cubicles, etcetera. But how liberating it is, at the same time, to realise that just a few centimetres away begins a space which may give us a wholy new perspective, and why not try it? In the meantime, we can simply choose to relish our sacred spaces, our family spaces, our love spaces. We can decide to spend more time there instead of the other, less uplifting ones, and then do spend that time.

Because its limits are only within us 'space (really is) the final frontier.'