The Place Where You Live

Orion Magazine, Summer 2014

"A sense of place is the sixth sense, an internal compass and map made by memory and spatial perception together.” —Rebecca Solnit

Southfield,Massachusetts

Posted by Amy Cohen Banker | July 3, 2014

I live in a nexus of thought and perception. Green and blue and white and yellow. Light and dark. Forest,trees,earth,dirt,memories of my ancestors, my deceased daughter and my living family and neighbors and animals. Indians,settlers,all ethnicities and ages decorate and commerate the highs and lows of my dreams and waking life of the epochs and the centuries.

I have a nexus of thought and perception. Fantasy and prose. City and country I conjure up the cool tropical breezes. I hear the whipering hush of the fans and shrill construction. I imagine crystal palace from the forest abode. Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, Plato’s Cave.

My meditations,musingslead me back to Mount Fuji,Gaudi’s Chapel,the big island Hawaii,Yale Summer Festival Norfolk, Ma. Strawberry Fields,England,and back to Berkshire County.

I love New York City but my “bed is a boat” before I go out to great expectations and pedestrian urban drama. I can live in my head and my artistic articulations in Southfield,Ma.

All is important and real