the one with the exploration rules
1 Comments Published by ginny on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at 10:37 AM.
The beautiful picture of broccoli has very little to do with this post, but it was just so pretty I had to share it. I get a great deal of enjoyment from keeping running "favorites" and "best" lists in my head. Because of this picture, broccoli just moved up in the "favorite vegetables" list (it was already pretty high, but it moved up a notch, past cabbage), and rocketed up close to the top of the "best" list for looks alone. (Rhubarb has held the title of "prettiest" for almost a year, though, and is unlikely to be knocked out any time soon.)
Rebecca commented on one of my most recent Blue Ridge Hospital pictures where I'd mentioned my rules about abandoned building exploration and asked if I'd post the list of them. And I say, sure!
Actually, I hadn't thought about how it might be unexpected that I would have rules for trespassing in potentially unsafe and un-humaned spaces, an activity that does seem fairly lawless by definition. The thing is, though, I simply....well...have rules about everything.
Except, of course, I really don't. Not rules, exactly, not laws, but more sort of structuring assumptions or guidelines. I'm not lying when I give my standard response to "But are you really a vegetarian?" I like to say "Oh, I don't like to have principles!" I say it to be funny, of course, but also because I don't like the idea of having a Principle I can't mess with or reformat as the occasion calls for, except in the case of a very few highly morally important subjects. But I do like having a set of guidelines by which I usually operate, but can choose to revamp at any moment.
This is, like the lists, part of how I operate. I have a strong interest (too strong sometimes) in taxonomy, categorization, ritual, and method. I'm always messing with the categories and guidelines, but they're always there. They comfort me. More than that, they structure my experience.
And with an experience as meaningful to me as exploring abandoned buildings, I sure do like having a way to structure it! The "rules" heighten the experience for me, actually. They let me prepare myself for what I'm about to experience and guide my feelings and understanding through a set of ritual assumptions: this experience will be both alienating and comforting; this experience will give the sense of contacting the Other; this experience will be structured as non-violent and non-harmful; this experience will test me.
So, with all that said -- my rules. Or ritual guidelines. Or structuring taxonomies. Or whatever:
- I will not move anything. If I have to move it, I put it back like it was. This is the one I changed for the Bert picture. It stems from the desire to experience the building as having an afterlife of its own, determining its own decay. I of course anticipate that other trespassers will have moved things, but for me, in my current experience, the placement of everything is part of the body of the building. I will not alter it.
- I will not take anything. Goes with the last one. This is a body. Taking things from it would mean dismembering it. I've taken things twice, and both times I have regretted it. The act seemed like sacrilege, and I then assumed responsibility for an object I could not fully appreciate. I'm always thinking of revising this one, though, since there are often such neat things.
- I will not break anything to get in. This one's easy because usually other trespassers have broken things before me.
- I will not outrage the building. Should be obvious from the others. Other people will probably graffiti, whatever. I will not. I have, however, twice written quotations from T.S. Eliot on chalkboards. (See how there are always situation-based changes to these things?)
- I will treat the space with some reverence. Less easy to delineate than the others, probably also slightly more annoying to any exploring partners I might take. Again, the structuring assumptions are: the space is a (ghostly) body; the entry is ritualized. So this has in the past meant not shouting, not stomping, not slamming doors, gazing appreciatively, being open to beauty, attempting to understand the building in terms of its own decay rather than in terms of a horror movie set or an ironic set of cultural callbacks, etc.
Those are the ideological rules. Then there are some practical ones:
- Don't park right up at the building.
- Take a flashlight.
- Don't walk in patently unsafe-looking areas. (Perhaps surprisingly, there aren't too many of these.)
- Approach from the back, if possible.
- Take a jacket.
- Go all the way around the building before entering to find the best place.
- Try to explore everywhere in a given building.
- Watch where you walk.
- Don't care if you get dirty.
- Don't be a wuss.
So there they are! I have this feeling that I've demystified the experience awfully, but I'm sure that's not really true. And if you know me and didn't know what a ritualized person I am...well...now you do. So there.
Labels: abandoned, liminality, space
I'm still just astonished that there are enough abandoned buildings in your area, having never seen one in my shiny Canadian city, like, ever. Okay, for a week before it gets knocked down, but that's it.
I like your rules; I too am a fan of ritual.