'On Longing' Responses

Quote #1: 

The body is the primary mode of perceiving scale.

This palm tree is in the yard of my grandma's vacation home in St. Augustine, FL. She let me pick out which one to buy at the store. I must have been 13 or 14 at the time. I was so excited to have my very own palm tree. They don't grow in Wisconsin, where I'm from so it was pretty cool. I never thought it would last but now it's over twice as tall as I am. I'm now living in the vacation home and the tree will always be a reminder of my grandma.

Quote #2:

...capacity of objects to serve as traces of authentic experience.

This name tag was stuck to my desk the whole three years I was at Madison College. It was a symbol of something that I did regardless of how terrified I was. College was a huge step forward for me, at the time. I have since made even bigger, more scary steps but this name tag will always be important to me.

Quote #3:

The souvenir reduces the public, the monumental, and the three-dimensional into the miniature, that which can be enveloped. 

 

Even though I grew up about and hour and a half from the Wisconsin state fair location, I went for the first time only a year ago. There was a concert happening which I was invited to by a friend. If not for that invite, I would still to this day, never have gone. The fair wasn't all it's cracked up to be but the concert was pretty cool because we got to meet the artists. Now, this cup and the backstage pass are the only things to remind me of my, one and only, state fair experience.

Quote #4:

Nostalgia cannot be sustained without loss.

Losing Sage, the dog I grew up with, was very difficult. I have so many memories with her that no other dog could ever replace. The best of which, happened the first night we brought her home. I was pretty young so I don't remember the exact details but it is still a good story. My mom let me do my homework with sage on my bed. That was a mistake. She destroyed most of it. My mom had to explain to my teacher that my dog actually did eat my homework. 

Quote #5:

To have a souvenir of the exotic is to posses both a specimen and a trophy.

It may not be exotic to some, but for someone who grew up in Wisconsin, oranges straight from the tree are pretty out of the ordinary. I have been visiting Florida my whole life, but only in the summers. Since oranges are ripe in the winter months, I never got to experience them. In 2015 and 2016, my mom and I started flying down for two weeks over the holidays. I finally got to taste the oranges on the tree out back of our vacation house. Oranges from home just never tasted as good after that.