Handy tips
(Handprint on the Foulis Building wall: Glasgow, Scotland)
For a little while more at least, I am immortalized in concrete, in a way. I think I was in either the third or fourth year of my degree studies when I took a short break outdoors for some air, and noticed the freshly setting concrete in the wall repair. It was too tempting. Rather than scrape my initials into it or attempt an obscene motif, I pressed my right hand firmly into it. Alright, so it isn’t massively original, but whenever I pass it, I slide my fingers back into the grooves made several years ago by a younger me.
It feels strange to push my hand back into the negative space in the cool cement – it’s like no other sensation. When it disappears, so will that indistinct feeling of nostalgia. I know that however many people have observed it, no one’s hand will fit as well as mine. It is a vaguely pleasant feeling, one of belonging and yet not belonging at all anymore. It is a physical shape of memory, pressed into the building’s fabric – soon to be torn down. Now, at the farewell party, I have at least documented it – though it is bizarre that this image will likely last longer than my handprint.
In other news, last night I attended a pub quiz with four friends. We failed in our mission to win, but there were a few individual triumphs for all of us. My three best answers that no other member of the team knew were; The Sistine Chapel, Ramora and Frank Oz. A nice spread of general knowledge, I’d say – that’s religious tradition, marine biology and movie knowledge right there. I do like a quiz, but as I have just proved, my competitiveness both enriches my experience, and taints it, dependent on the state of play.
Rosie – ‘Culture aficionado’ (Ellie’s suggestion: Sign off #2)
– Today Rosie is drawing, meeting friends and drawing again in Glasgow, Scotland –
Sign-off suggestion: “Vandal”
By the way, it was 4th year. I was there trying to tear you away from committing a egotistical selfish act of gross wanton vandalism ruining the painstaking hard work that a builder was paid to repair from the funds of high-fee paying foreign students (who are later not welcome in the country).
Are you sure that you were not just jealous that she got there first? I would have been.
Dare I say that the building was a travesty and that anything done to it, but particularly its demolition, could only be an improvement.
I vote for ‘true’ on both counts.
I concur.
Love this post and the sentiments about the personal traces you can leave in city environments if you take the opportunity.