The Body is the Primary Mode of Perceiving Scale
-Susan Stuart
When I heard this sentence, It immediately brought me to the area of my life that I connect with running. I run cross country and track for Flagler and I've been running since I was in 4th Grade. It has been something that I prioritize deeply and something that I constantly want to be better at. My senior year of High School, I ran most of my best times. Once I got to college, I improved at first but later got injured and I have not run the same since. Running, since then, has been a difficult topic for me as I currently continue to train because I see the progress I once had and can see that I am still ways away from where I used to be before I was I injured. Something I do not like to talk about with others, including those close to me, are my eating habits while in High School and how that affected my running and possibly later my injury in college. While I am still a very small person now, I was even smaller my senior year of high school and before I got injured in college. The photo above was the last photo taken of me as a high school runner. This photo was taken at the New Jersey State meet where I ran my last high school races. Once I got to college, I focused on changing my habits but in Highschool, I had an eating disorder that fueled a lot of my running. Eating less made me feel faster. I suppose that this sentence in the On Longing book reminds me of how my body back then affected how I viewed running then, and how my body now affects how I view running currently, but sometimes they mesh and intertwine and the past and the present cross over. My injured self now sometimes wishes I was back to where I was, but also I don't, because at the time while it didn't feel like it, it was unhealthy and it caused me to become injured. However, it was a really high moment in my life (my senior year of highschool and first semester of college) where I was running great and I felt improvement. The scale and perception of racing and competing was so different back then to how it is now. Back then, I was really into it because I felt fast and it felt like I could accomplish anything when it came to running. Now, in the same body but a bit different, racing feels a bit nostalgic, like something I'm unable to do anymore, or do well at least. It is a little upsetting but something I've had to come to terms with. I hope in the next few years while i'm still at college I'm able to get to a point where I am competing to my best abilities again.
The souvenir speaks to a context of origin through a language of longing.
-Susan Stuart
Above is a photo of a necklace I created in the wood shop this year. I did it on my own time for a personal project. The piece is a small piece of wood, sanded to be circular and flat, with a lizard carving in the center. I painted it to match the aesthetics and colors of a lizard. I originally made this for my friend. We have a lot of inside jokes and good memories, one revolving around lizards and reptiles. We both seem to like them. Lizards, to us, also represent a song we both really like and bonded over. The song is "The Lizards" by Phish. When we hang out, we always listen to this song randomly and just dance to it. I gave this person the necklace back in March, when they visited me from New Jersey. This necklace meant a lot to the both of us. It meant a lot to both of us because I spent a lot of time on it and it signifies our friendship. I made it as a souvenir for my friend. Now, a few months later, this person has done something seriously wrong to me and we are no longer talking. The person said they will give me back the necklace when I see them next. It is a very sticky situation, but I still hope to remain friends with this person if it is possible. The necklace, now, is something I long for, not because I want it back, but because I want the friendship back.
The souvenir reduces the public, the monumental, and the three-dimensional into the miniature, that which can be enveloped by the body.
-Susan Stuart
Over winter break, my childhood friend Shane and I purchased legos. I picked out the roller-skate one, mainly because I love rollerskating and I felt like it fit me the best. Rollerskating is an extremely monumental thing for me. It has brought me a lot of memories, friends, and good times. I am excited to continue rollerskating this summer. This souvenir lego roller-skate reduces something extremely monumental to me, rollerskating, into something I can physically hold. While I can't physically hold the concept of "rollerskating" and all the memories that come with it, I can certainly have a miniature roller-skate that reminds me of all those things.
The souvenir is used most often to evoke a voluntary memory of childhood.
- Susan Stuart
I used to have a lot of lemonade stands growing up. I don't drink lemonade a lot now, but when I do it makes me remember how it was when I was a little kid. Most of the time the driving reason I get lemonade now is just for that feeling. The reason I love lemonade is because of how nostalgic it is. Whenever I see lemonade or hear about it, I feel like I have a connection to the concept. I think of the wagon I used to tug around with my mom following behind me. All the neighbors would come out and I would make them lemonade.
The place of origin must remain unavailable, in order for desire to be generated.
-Susan Stuart
I was lucky enough to occupy my mother's childhood in my early childhood. We'd visit my grandmother often, and she would make us food and we'd spend holidays there and spend a lot of in the summer. There were always a lot of people in the house, and the house had been through a lot. My great grandfather came from a town in Sicili, Ana Maria, in 1903 to the United States. He came through New York and settled in Philadelphia, found work, then brought over his infant son Gonetello and his wife Antonia, and settled in South Jersey in Sea Isle City. He would raise a family with six children, one being my grandmother Rose, and later my grandmother would run that house with her husband George and raise my mother and her two sisters. Our entire family lived on that block throughout the 20th century. My mother always told me stories of her aunts and uncles that lives two houses down, about other children that lived in the neighborhood. Everyone was so connected back then. And for awhile, my early childhood felt like that too. I remember my grandmother and playing with my cousins at the house, and all the neighbors childrens. Soon though, my grandmother passed away and we were left with my house. My mother and her sister had to make a decision. My mother wanted to keep the house. However, a lot of the infrastructure in the town had changed and a lot of duplexes and apartments were going up in place of old family houses. The decision was made to knock down the house and build up a duplex, which was then sold and now stands there being rented out in the summer for tourists to go in. I sometimes think of the house and I feel bitter that they knocked it down. It was beautiful, and white, and had a large backyard. It had a lot of history and memories. The town where it stands, Sea Isle, has changed a lot. There used to be a lot of locals and families, and there were once two schools (which are both now closed). There used to be a big lively community, but now it has changed a lot and the majority of the houses there now are summer beach houses that stay vacant 8 months througout the year. When I think of the old house, I think of my grandmother and I think of my mothers family with this quote and wish I could go back, mainly because I never can.
