Though this seems more likely to cost me marks than gain them, I will briefly mention a theory of Jacques Lacan (all of the best theorists seem to be named Jacques). It might be wise to brush up on it because Hartman refers to it a fair amount in his paper, which we may look at again. Otherwise, this will act as a meaty concept to chew on while you're driving to work today.
Lacan, in the 50s, introduced this idea of the symbolic, the imaginary and the real. Kinda sounds like The Matrix, doesn't it? The whole concept builds on Freud, who I'm not about to try and simplify, but Lacan tries to explain human cognition, I guess, and how it is formulated. He mentions the moment that a toddler first encounters a mirror, and how crucial that moment is to development. If I'm getting this right, that very moment is when a person begins to formulate the imaginary sense of self. That is, a person becomes aware of their place in the world, and immediately begin to concoct a version of themselves within it. It's not a true, or even accurate, version, mind you (hence the name). It is sort of a description of the ego; who you believe yourself to be, and how great your self truly is.
The symbolic deals with language and its usage in organizing the psyche. That is, the self can only be understood through symbolization found through the world and one's relation to it.
The real refers to all that is "out there" beyond the other two concepts. That is, what exists before the toddler stumbles in front of the mirror. It is the self before the application of language, symbolism, experience and so on. It is a realm beyond words, always beyond the tips of our tongues and outside the realms of explanation (as I'm demonstrating beautifully right now).
This somehow relates to me at age 12, shivering, wet and miserable. I'm pressing blueish fingertips to the side of my neck to feel my racing pulse. I'm measuring my heart rate. I watch the giant clock above the pool deck. The clock hands are multicolored, one of the few things in the room that I enjoy. I count the thrums of my pre-pubescent blood as it oxygenates my brain, keeping it healthy enough to realize that I don't want to be here. This was "swim team," an activity and an entity that I was inexplicably the member of for several years.
I say "inexplicably" because I was the worst one on the team. Now, some folks will say, "Oh, dude, I was the worst on that team" when they reminisce about t-ball and 4-square and other hyphenated games. Not me, though. It was really obvious to everyone around that I was the slowest, most uncoordinated swimmer out of about one hundred kids in four different age groups.
I couldn't dive, and would instead fall into the water with akimbo limbs, no doubt sickening referees while costing my swim club precious seconds in the coveted Boys 12 & Under 50m Freestyle. I couldn't swim straight because I didn't open my eyes underwater. I couldn't turn properly because I couldn't see the wall that I was meant to re-direct and push off from. I collided with lane ropes. I didn't use proper form. I couldn't swim. Oh, sure, I could prevent myself from drowning (which is why my parents sent me in the first place) but that's not the same thing.
I met Sarah here. Carbonear was the town she lived in, an eternity away when your usual mode of transportation was my ability on a bicycle. It was about half an hour by car.
In head-shrinking rubber swim caps, sporting junk food pot bellies, we got to know one another. I try to remember those times now and of course I cannot. Several years of swim team, all spent with her, and now I can no longer recall how much often we spoke, whether or not we got along, if we had the same friends. It's all lost in the ether, amongst the whiffs of chlorine.
Years later, there were drama festivals and pimples and scattered encounters as two students from two different schools tend to meet. This is all lost as well, and I wonder just how much time we spent together then.It did feel like a lot, like something we both had to wait for. Of course we knew of each other and of course we were "friends" by kids' terms, but were we who we would become? I just can't remember, and so I wonder about it all the time. I guess I'm doomed to continue wondering.
It was a phone call, when she told me she was moving to Bay Roberts--biking distance, surely. "Some place called Finn Street," she'd said.
"Wait...that's right outside my house." She must've been moving into the Drovers' old place.
Then she moved into the Drovers' old place.
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