The Little Store

While reading Eudora Welty’s “The Little Store” I noticed she has an interesting control over the use of perspective compared to most objective writers. It’s quite a refreshing change, but it made things a little harder to read at times. I felt as though she was writing so that I may experience a childhood memory in close proximity to hers.

The opening of the essay sets the stage in a setting very familiar to her, her home, while relating the experience to her family. However, none of this seems to play into the rest of the essay, as it is about the store down the road, and the experiences she has had because of it. I believe she enters this way so that she can take a mundane tale about buying a few items at the local market, and turn it into something extraordinary, encapsulating the experiences each reader has had (for example, the fear of narrow, dark places e.g. the storm sewer) as a child while still keeping it all personal to her.

The story can connect with readers on many levels, but it is still unquestionably a story about her and her experiences and relationships. Everyone has experienced noticing a familiar person in an unfamiliar setting, although it’s a unique experience for every individual. In her case it is tied directly to the little store. She writes, “I ran to the store to discover…a grown person” and goes on to state, “It was the Monkey Man, together with his monkey…In my whole life so far, I must have laid eyes on the Monkey Man no more than five or six times.”

Welty seems to consider the store itself as something symbolizing her youth, that the Little Store was inexplicably tied by some thread to most, if not all, of the enjoyment she experienced during her time living near it. The road she played games on as a child is not just a road, but "the road that leads to the store" which ties her recreation time, directly to the time she was at the store. “I knew even the sidewalk to it as well as I knew my own skin. I'd skipped my jumping-rope up and down it, hopped its length through mazes of hopscotch, played jacks…” exemplifies how Welty describes everything in her memories in relation to the store.

This is a rare form of writing in which the centerpiece is not the narrator or the person that the story refers to most, but an object, idea, or place that ties a multitude of emotional threads together. I think this was Welty’s goal, as the store relates to happy moments, sad moment, wondrous moments, and confused moments. She uses her perspective as a child flawlessly to engage the reader using his or her own childhood experiences.

Where are you from?

Where am I from?

What is where? Is it the place that is important or the atmosphere surrounding the place, or perhaps the events that happened there? “Where” is a question that can have a lot of different implications. I’m sure if someone were interested enough they could find the exact grid coordinates of the locations of all the notable events in their life. However, I feel that answering the question in that manner detracts from the original purpose.

If someone were to ask me, “Where did you grow up?” I suppose I would have a difficult time answering. The concise answer, “Walnut Grove, GA” hardly gives any insight into my personality, and most assuredly would not answer any other questions aside from the one just stated. The “Where” is less of a place and more of a memory every day.

I am from the place where fires burn in barrels, doors always stay locked, and people avoid making eye contact with one another. A place where the sun shines, but no one seems to take notice unless it furthers their own goals. A place where people used to have pets, but now they just run free as strays to cause trouble for everyone. A place where I learned self defense, but the lessons were free. This place where I came from had the word “struggle” on everyone’s daily agenda.

Yet I also came from a place of freedom for someone my age. I could come and go as I pleased so long as someone knew where I’d be. I made my own choices and fully accepted the reactions from my action whether positive or negative. I am from a place that instills great strength upon someone on both the outside and the inside, but that strength also comes with its weaknesses. The place I was from has also branded me with many inerasable scars.

I am from a place that taught me not to hold on to people and places. In that place the only thing that mattered was the present, and the choices you make right then.

Where I am from has been the single biggest event to shape my character in my life. I believe that it has changed the way I view the world permanently. That place has instilled in me quite a few traits that still help dictate how I see the world. An internal fortitude, mixed with a gritty realism, and a suspicion that borders on paranoia are traits that exist in my day to day life, and they may never go away.

Since then, I have been in much nicer places, with much better people, but when I think of “Where” I’m from, that is the place that exists to me.

Seeing Parkour

Seeing Parkour

Parkour is a physical discipline characterized by its goal: to overcome any physical obstacle with fast, efficient movement. You may have seen parkour in the media from time to time, or you may have never heard of it. For most people, their exposure to the activity is limited, and as such it is a difficult concept to fully grasp. The practitioners of parkour are called traceurs, a term derived from a French word meaning: to trace a path.

One interesting aspect of parkour is the effect it has on the way traceurs see the world around them. The longer you train, the less you stay confined to accept that the world around you is exactly as it appears. Pathways open up, both physically and mentally, the route from point A to B may alter depending on circumstance. A traceur finds himself looking up much more often, wondering where and how. Practitioners of this art/sport/discipline never run out of places to go.

"We miss a great deal because we perceive only things on our own scale." So how does parkour change the way one “sees”? When a normal person looks upon a stairway, they see an integral part of the way society changes elevation. A stairway is so commonplace, that no one questions its purpose or the way it works. This stairway is obviously the most efficient way to traverse this span. When a traceur looks upon a stairway he “sees” each individual step as contributing something to the whole, he takes note that only one in every 3 steps are needed, he takes into account the entire vertical drop. Traceurs still miss a lot though, because we are always comparing. That is why the truly innovative perceive with no scale.

Ann Dillard writes, “I see what I expect” and the same is true with traceurs, traceurs simply expect to see differently that most people. A traceur can see any object in his environment as a tool of movement, exercise, or recreation. No one else looks at the lines between parking spaces and uses them either as a game, or a marker to track self-improvement, except maybe children. I am personally amazed at some of the things children can see. I relate to children in that I also love playing on the monkey bars, except usually I’m balancing atop them.

"It's all a matter of keeping my eyes open". Monkey bars are meant for swinging, painted lines are meant for parking, staircases are meant for climbing, handrails are meant for safety, and walls are meant for fortification, but when you try to perceive things in a different light, new usages for common objects arise. Keeping my eyes open means actively looking for new methods to accomplish the same goal. Those are only more common purposes, but nothing is exclusive, not in design, not in practice.

"If I can't see these minutiae, I still try to keep my eyes open." In parkour, what are the small details? What difference do they make? In parkour, being able to see the minutiae means the difference between going home tired and going home in a cast. The activity is dangerous. It isn’t just about being able to see new heights, but also about paying attention to what you’re standing on. A person can “see” cold metal, tiny specks of sand, and a loose rock so long as he is looking for it. A misplaced step, off by a mere half an inch can send a person tumbling to the ground. When I see my destination, I see the exact point where I wish to land.

In parkour, the mindset is different, but understanding why it is different or what exactly is so different about it is a complicated ordeal on its own. “I reel in confusion; I don't understand what I see." (AD). For example, when I was training out side the business office near the stairs and the tall wall, what exactly do I see? I focus on pathways through, over, and around and I think about ways to emulate what I see myself doing. I see the effects of gravity, of leverage, of hand placement and foot placement. "Still, a great deal of light falls on everything."(AD). Still though, it isn’t required that I understand why I see the world this way; it is still illuminated to me.

I guess I’ve always had this mindset, it just required taking action to bring it forth. When I was younger I loved climbing, as most children do. I’ve always been active, and I guess the combination of the two along with a likeminded community really brought me into this discipline. "I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until that moment I was lifted and struck."(AD)

Though I do not understand it, the “why” is still interesting. Why exactly do I see the world this way, and what exactly do I see? “...sense impressions of one-celled animals are not edited for the brain: This is philosophically interesting in a rather mournful way, since it means that only the simplest animals perceive the universe as it is." (AD) I can agree with the statement that the brain will see what it wants to see, oftentimes in spite of what is actually there. Does this mean that my reality isn’t real? I perceive the world in a way different than most, but that doesn’t mean that what I see, and what someone else sees are mutually exclusive.

Parkour gives one a mindset of new possibilities. I can see myself in new places, and now I can go there as well.