spots of time

Wordsworth speaks of certain memories or 'spots of time' which are 'scattered everywhere'. They have a special place in the life of each of us, and it is our task to recover them: not as an act of simple nostalgia, but because they help to repair and renovate us if we find them. This is because they resonate with new meanings long after the events themselves have taken place.

Perhaps this is partly what I am doing in setting to work on this blog, and it is a search which goes hand-in-hand with the process of therapy itself. After all, these spots are, by their very nature, elusive. They can't be hunted down like an Easter egg or a petrified fox. We must push and prod and probe, until the priceless memory - and the feeling it evokes - is unlocked. What better way to do this than to write?

'There are in our existence spots

of time

That with a distinct pre-eminence

retain

A renovating virtue, when,

depressed

By false opinions and contentious

thought,

Or aught of heavier and more

deadly weight,

In trivial occupations, and the

round

Of ordinary intercourse, our minds

Are nourished and invisibly

repaired;

A virtue by which pleasure is

enhanced,

That penetrates, enables us to

mount,

When high, more high, and lifts us

up when fallen...'

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH - THE PRELUDE