Photo: L. Weikel
Wrong Somehow
Have you ever had that experience where you write down (or type) a word that you use often, perhaps even daily, and it suddenly trips you up? You can’t stop looking at it. You’ve spelled it the way you always do (or at least you think you have), but no matter how hard you try to just move on, in this moment, it looks misspelled. It looks wrong somehow. So you try to spell it another way but that doesn’t look right either.
I wonder about that. What little blip or glitch took place in side my brain that has me looking at a word I’ve seen and spelled and used a million times, only to have it feel entirely unfamiliar?
Perhaps it’s got nothing whatsoever to do with the insides of my brain. Maybe it’s simply a function of perspective.
Not Always Words
Actually, my most recent experience of this phenomenon didn’t have anything to do with words. It had to so with a photo, an image I collected.
The photo is of the reflection of some birch trees in a puddle that’s on the verge of freezing solid.
I know exactly where I took the photo and how the milieu appeared to me at the time I took it. Indeed, it stopped me dead in my tracks. There was a quality to the moment that demanded I capture it.
The thing is, every single time I try to ‘save’ the photo in my laptop’s library, it refuses to behave. It apparently prefers a sideways stance. But that’s when that funny feeling suddenly starts up.
It looks right to me sideways. In fact, when the photo is on its side, I’m reminded of something that feels like a visceral memory. I’m reminded of a view from the inside of a cave looking outward, and it feels like I’ve been here before.
I feel like I’m looking up and outward. Photo: L. Weikel
Change in Perspective
All of which, again, reminds me of the power of changing (or at the very least shifting) our perspective. But it’s tricky, isn’t it? Is there a way to trigger a shift in perspective? I can’t say I’ve ever been able to consciously attempt to do it with words (as in, make myself think a word suddenly looks misspelled or out of place).
And maybe that’s the thing. Maybe it isn’t supposed to happen with the words. Or maybe it just… doesn’t. Maybe it’s all about our ability to transport ourselves elsewhere through our mind’s eye.
(T+45)