Abigail Thomas, (04/02/08 ? discussion)

When Dr Redick was describing where he lived and how there was an area around or near that had once been woods that had been mowed down for potential housing (and Dr Redick told us about his sons efforts in protesting that). I just thought it was interesting that as I’m picturing the story, my personal reference that I’m implementing as the setting is this area on an off-road from my road in Louisa. At first it was just some woods with a few houses lining the road with their driveways connecting in for access. The driveways meandered in such a way that it looked like the way the people designed them were to just cut a car-size path around the trees as oppose to just plowing through for a straight and direct driveway to the road. But then about a year later (I had come back from school after awhile), acres right behind that line of a few houses were completely mowed down of trees. There were acres of gap where there had once been acres of trees. I thought it was interesting that as Dr Redick was telling us about the land around his house I used that little neighborhood on that small road in Louisa as the setting of his story in my imagination.
I think this is an interesting perception method that’s been used many times before by me: to have someone tell me about a place or just say the name of a place and my mind takes on a setting from my own sights and memories to explain this place. I remember one of my first major realizations of this method; in elementary school there was a girl in my class that had said the place name, Jamaica. She had visited there and when she said that word the setting that came to mind and was adopted as to explain what Jamaica must look like, I pictured a big black marble platform or stage and there was overcast. I knew that her facts weren’t all adding up with what I was picturing but somehow I maintained how what I was imagining was convincingly reasonable with what she said. She mentioned ‘beach’ and I pictured shallow, black-marble steps descending into dark water and there were a few red-orange crabs around and my classmates for the people on the beach. I decided that this must be based on some previous view I had and decided this was not unlike what I guess I see the Regency Square Mall in Richmond as (during my elementary school years).
I just think the mind’s attempt at substituting what you have seen for where you’ve never been is an interesting way that people interpret and try to map out where you’ve been and then beyond where you’ve been.