Week 3 Walking Journal // Reading Response.
Walking Journal #2:
7:04 Notes: As I walk out my home I remember the memories I first had when I moved in. I recently moved in, not to long ago around 2 years ago was when I first came to this place. It felt like every other Chicago neighborhood, but this one has meaning to it now. It has grown onto me as a home. What is home? Home is what brings people comfort and walking around I feel comfort. I stop to come to my senses and see my surroundings. Now this is the night so somethings were harder to see obviously, however I can sense the nostalgia breathing through. The more I walk and look around, the more flashbacks I received and had memories of the summer of 2019 when I would go out to get breakfast or lunch in the mornings and afternoon. It brings me a great sense of feeling down my memory and made me resonance with my past self.
7:26 Notes: I decided to walk around the park a bit more. Some stops I had where stop signs and traffic stops, but that’s the expected stops. I’ve never been in the park this late, so the ambient sounds were scaring me a bit. It was strange for me and felt like I was in a horror film a bit, but I wasn’t as scared when I remembered that I was not in it. The park was dark and you could hear animals, mostly rabbits or raccoons, crinkling in the grass. At first I was a bit worried about the sounds, it gave me a sense of discomfort which is the opposite of when I first got out of my house. How I responded was with quick action and tried to get to safety of course, just in case it was a one in one millionth chance of me being in an actual movie. I decided to then move to the outsides of the park and walk around there for a while. That gave me more of a sense comfort and made me feel much better and less anxious about whats about to happen. In my mind I knew nothing bad would happen if I went in the park. I knew that it would be okay even though there were some sounds that spooked me a little but I still decided not to go in fully. There were some people at the outskirts of the park as well. Seeing other people outside was more relaxing and was more safe but still ambient about who they are. I have no idea what they do and their living jobs day to day life, so it still gives me a sense of ways not to trust those people and distance myself, but stay close enough where if something was to happen they would see it.
8:01 Notes: On my way back nothing to special happened. I didn’t think about whats happening to me rather I though about what was happening around me. It was on a city street so I saw lots of cars. I didn’t get much pictures of the cars since its easy to know what cars look like but there lots of cars passing by. My best assumption is that they are coming back from work or they are leaving to work. Regardless they have a destination to go to. I did not see many people and only saw the guys at the park. It was very quite and peaceful around the area for this time.
Reading Response: In “Paris, or Botanzing the Asphalt,” Rebecca Solnit quotes Walter Benjamin who writes, “But to lose oneself in a city — as one loses oneself in a forest — that calls for a quite a different schooling” (p. 255). What is the meaning of “losing oneself in the city?” Have you ever lost yourself in this sense? If so, describe your experience. What do you remember?
Losing oneself in the city can be interpreted in lots of ways. My interpretation is carrying yourself away in one huge section. You are too focused on that one thing, an example would be easier to explain. Imagine you are exploring a new city, you really enjoy their architect. You go around for hours looking at the buildings but do anything other than that. That is how I see loosing oneself in the city. Now that’s just an example, it doesn’t have to be a city it could be a country but you can see where I’m coming from. In this term, have I ever lost myself in the city? The answer would be yes. I have lost myself and get carried away a lot at times. When I go out to eat, sometimes I forgot the whole point of leaving was to eat and not go shopping. I had an experience with my friend where we had to record CTA train stops, but we got so carried away with stopping and looking around that we forgot we had to do a project. (183)
