Are places just places or do the ghosts of events past lurk around their corners, dribbling narratives and memory like senile elders? Can they ever be sterile, antiseptic, scrubbed free of the flotsam that is a solitary man’s story? Will there always be a stance to a square of earth, a side of emotion, a tug, a claim? What is it about places that make them more than places?
Perhaps just the fact that everyone has one. And loves one. Even if the ‘twain do not meet.
Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas 
Everything you said. I also believe that events such as someone having fallen in love in that place, someone having taken their first steps, someone having hosted fun get-togethers – even if that person was not someone you knew / someone famous – changes it forever and adds character.
without ghosts, pasts lurking around, places will be boring, dont you think?
With you and Dark Comedy on this. I’m sure several places bear cosmic residues of events and emotions
When I need my dose of writing that gets more beautiful with every read and that makes me sigh wistfully, I come here. Just the way I go to my book of Vikram Seth’s poetry. Or any of Rohinton Mistry books.
What a beautiful thought. This thought always crosses my mind when I am at the beach. How many, many stories those waves must carry.
‘Will there always be a stance to a square of earth, a side of emotion, a tug, a claim’ – Beautiful.
darkcomedy: True. 🙂
sukanyabora: Boredom is underrated! Ghosts jump out from spooky corners. Me no like. 😦
dipali: ‘Cosmic residues’. I love that phrase.
Roxana: Oh gosh. Oh wow. Thanks!
I believe the same about migrant “labour” and built social construction, of stepping into a street in Doha and declaring “But this is Karachi!” or “And now Manila!”
And as I wrote once about Canberra even if events leave ‘no material traces’, as in not being part of history books, written texts, or other form of media but they are indexed in resources of memory, discourse and as you put it squares of earth.
I trust this is what they call social geography
what a 1am of a comment. I should surf the internet mornings now
Places and smell
Make memories swell
They make one hanker
Sometimes leave canker
But home is really where the heart doth dwell!