concrete
As an adjective, this word is an antonym for 'abstract'. It describes a thing that "exist[s] in a material or physical form." Later, the word was applied to a material that is made by mixing broken stone, sand, cement, and water.
Concrete also shares some characteristics with settler-colonists--it has been displaced from the lands it evolved with/in, its material make-up is a conglomeration of different places, and its presence is a result and perpetuation of industrial imperialist capitalism.
In to be (with) a rock, I talk with a piece of concrete about these issues. I ask the concrete if it remembers where it came from, if it feels displaced and lost after being unearthed from its originary mountain and from the street it helped form. I ask if it has found some kind of transcendence in experiencing such rapid change. I learned from the concrete that there are some things we can only learn by forgetting other things. Like the prodigal son, one can only know the joys of coming home after one knows the sorrows of leaving home. Similarly, I hope we are learning things in this time when many of us have forgotten our connections to land that we wouldn't learn without feeling disconnected.
see also: change, decolonization, ebb / flow, fake rocks / real rocks, fluid, home, inside / outside, kin(d), land, Latter-days, mountain / valley, mine / mine, origins / foundations, phantom pains, reify, remember / memory / memorial, rocks / stones, southwestern Utah, spiritual experience, stable / settled, there / their, under / inner, "what is"
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As an adjective, this word is an antonym for 'abstract'. It describes a thing that "exist[s] in a material or physical form." Later, the word was applied to a material that is made by mixing broken stone, sand, cement, and water.
Concrete also shares some characteristics with settler-colonists--it has been displaced from the lands it evolved with/in, its material make-up is a conglomeration of different places, and its presence is a result and perpetuation of industrial imperialist capitalism.
In to be (with) a rock, I talk with a piece of concrete about these issues. I ask the concrete if it remembers where it came from, if it feels displaced and lost after being unearthed from its originary mountain and from the street it helped form. I ask if it has found some kind of transcendence in experiencing such rapid change. I learned from the concrete that there are some things we can only learn by forgetting other things. Like the prodigal son, one can only know the joys of coming home after one knows the sorrows of leaving home. Similarly, I hope we are learning things in this time when many of us have forgotten our connections to land that we wouldn't learn without feeling disconnected.
see also: change, decolonization, ebb / flow, fake rocks / real rocks, fluid, home, inside / outside, kin(d), land, Latter-days, mountain / valley, mine / mine, origins / foundations, phantom pains, reify, remember / memory / memorial, rocks / stones, southwestern Utah, spiritual experience, stable / settled, there / their, under / inner, "what is"
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