Sense of Place

Everyone can find where they feel a sense of place and a sense of being at home and comfortable. People can find their sense of place in many different ways and they can find it after years of looking or it can just be from where they grew up or where they always are. This article, written by Jennifer Cross, speaks specifically of these ways that people find their 'place.' She interviewed and spoke to many people and found out their relationship with where they are and how they found their sense of space. I relate and understand the story that Susie shared, she felt a biographical relationship with where she lived and where she finds her sense of place there at the house her father built. I feel the same with my house.

I did not have access to a picture of my own house but the picture above gives an idea to how I feel. I lived in my first house until I was 8 and then we got to move. I was excited to pick out the color of my very own room and decide where my bed was going to go and where all my possessions would go. I thought this was the best house until my dad gave us a surprise. We were going to be able to build a pool in our backyard. Every day, I would go into the family room and look out the big window. Outside the window, I could see more and more progress as the days went on. I saw construction workers digging, I saw the pool be put in place, I saw the pool liner be put in, and I saw the concrete be put around the pool. All that was left was being able to have our first pool party outside. 

The design of the house helped create my sense of place. I had my own room, I had the best window to look out at the pool and I lived in the perfect city by all my family to have pool parties with. I still live in this house and I never want my parents to move. Even if we found a house with another pool, it wouldn't be the pool I was able to watch be built. This creates my biographical relationship and my sense of place with object, a pool, and the space, my house.