Genius Loci - "Spirit of Place"
The place that I decided to write about was my bedroom back home. I suppose there is not much to say but here goes. It is a fairly small bedroom, around 10 1/2’ by 11’, and tucked into the basement of the house. With all of the random posters on the walls, you can hardly tell the room is painted a light blue. The posters range from ones that I got at twins games, to ones that I made in art class in middle school. Like many other bedrooms, it has a bed, dresser, closet, shelves on the wall and a desk. But perhaps the two most distinct features in my room are my bookshelf and bulletin board. Although the bookshelf is small, it is filled to capacity, and almost completely with one series. When I was younger, I began a series known as “Redwall� and fell in love with the innocent characters and the daring adventures with evil villains and valiant heroes. Several years later, and I am on book 13 and counting. Adventure, risk, love, drama….. so much of my life I experienced new and different worlds simply by cracking open a book. The other obvious aspect of my room, my bulletin board, portrays much of the same type of thing, but instead of books, it shows my softball career. It has everything from the traditional row of gleaming medals to the small patches they gave you when you were younger, because games were just for fun back then. Just looking at it reminds me of the many afternoons I spent practicing in the red dirt, or waiting at home plate as the pitcher shifts back and forth as she decides between a curveball and a change up.
Just walking into my room makes me feel safe and comfortable. Perhaps this is because it has been able to adapt to whatever I have every needed. It can be a place of solitude, during the torturous hours spent doing homework, or a place where I can rock my music, surf the web and chat with my friends. Or it is a place where I can just come and sleep in total peace. It is a place where I can control every aspect, and when I leave it, I know that it will be the same when I come back. I know that that may sound weird, but in a world that is always changing and transforming, it is nice to have a rock in my life, that never changes, never moves. A place that feels as if it is set aside in time.
And that is why it is my genius loci.