I have to admit that my eyes walked right by your "half-gowpen," failing to get my mind around that measure of a newly encountered word. Thanks for bringing attention to it, and to pointing to Shafak's blog to help me get a grip on what that familiar space-between-cupped-hands is called.
It is indeed a marvelous word to try out, and I like your hyphenated "In my half-gowpen, grains of red sand accumulated."
points to the word's arrival from old Norse, first recorded usage “ane grit gowpene of the gowk fart” around 1500. Getting my hands around that gives me a double handful to think about, and a chuckle in not knowing the proper translation of of "gowk fart."
Cupping my hands around a morning cuppa joe, I feel like I'm coming to understand it a little better. Gaining a feeling of warmth and familiarity in holding something in cupped hands, I did one final jump, finding William Blake's oft quoted poem "Auguries of Innocence" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-innocence) holding on to that same imagery when he begins:
re: not feeling grounded in Boston. when i visit other cities, it takes me a while to resync my internal compass. your comments recalled a story from my seaplane flying days.
after learning to fly in the puget soound area and becoming very comfortable with the area, i went to florida and took a few lessons in a seaplane. immediately after popping off the water, i commented to the instructor, “wow, you actually could get lost here.” in pilot training you study not getting lost a lot but it never really sunk in her in the PNW where (a) all the water is N-S, (b) Mt Rainier, Mt Baker, and Olympics all form a triangle of navigational beacons. Florida by contrast, was just flatland dotted with puddles in every direction same-o same-o in every direction. I said to instructor, you give me vectors, i’ll fly the plane, he did, we got home. Later after a lot more flying and crossing the midwest a few times, I did get in sync with more subtle directional signs (think section line roads, and from afar the rockys are either E or W, running N or S),and there’s always the sun (well, not always but usually if i’m flying). So yeah, I never feel lost in the PNW. Ask me where something is and I’ll likely point my right index finger exactly in the right direction. Cape Disappointment, yeah, from here, it’s right over there behind and a little left of West Seattle Junction. Put me in Kansas, Hopeless.
ps: i just plotted out my bold assertion about where cape disappointment is from here. I was within about 5 degrees, good enough to navigate there. it's vector is a little more right of the junction than the left, but close enough.
yes, but we call it the booger finger. the booger finger is the pointer finger is the index finger. it's quite versatile. the adjacent finger is the messaging finger. generally these days, i message with it hidden in a pocket so as to avoid violent retribution. now i've spent 10 minutes studying the word origin of index finger. sigh, i think i'll go back to something productive like reading my book about the history of spinach farming in New Jersey.
Like in Boston, precipitation amounts in Baltimore were also forecast based on 95 and 695, the beltway around the city. It seemed odd when I first moved there, but I became accustomed to it. And I can relate to the lack of geographical reference points: I spent a year living in Kansas, and once you left the town it was mile after mile of flat farmland. I felt lost not having a ridge line or even a few hills to anchor my place in space!
When I went to college in Missouri there were no mountains. Rolling hills and lakes weren't cutting it for this Seattle native. When I returned home I let loose a sigh of relief: MY MOUNTAINS! Olympics to the west, Cascade range to the east, and Mount Rainier, rising above the Cascade range. It felt like returning to my comfort zone and the familiarity of the mountains and Salish Sea was definitely "returning home" in the most primal sense.
I'm so amused by the reference to highways as dividing lines for weather patterns. "What ghost of Robert Moses it be that allowed interstates to control the weather?" made me LOL.
As a former NYC resident, born in CT, citizen of Seattle, hands down our City is better than Boston, except for mass transportation. Did you need an interpreter while there? 😄
At times. My theory is that Bostonians have a think about the letter R. Sometimes you add it to a word such as Frederick Lahr Olmsted. And sometimes you kick it out. Makes it fun to try and figure out what people are saying!
David, really enjoyed this post. Like you, I spent several years in Boston/Cambridge (attending grad school and working in the late 80s) and have been in Seattle ever since (having grown up in an even flatter place than Boston - southeastern Michigan). I like to think of my move from Boston to Seattle as just going a bit further west on I-90. Although Boston/Cambridge do not have a Mt Rainier, what they do have are iconic neighborhoods. My centering point(s) in Boston and Cambridge tended to be my favorite pubs in those neighborhoods: the Plough and Stars in Harvard Square, the Cantab Lounge in Central Square, and the Black Rose in Quincy Market!
So much of our sense of "home" is tied to place. I struggled when I lived in Michigan. Was a bit outraged when I was taken to Crystal Mountain to find it was neither a mountain, nor natural. Lake Michigan helped mimic the ocean a bit. But finally moved back West. "What can we do to make you stay?" "Can you relocate the mountains and sea?" Still love Michigan and appreciate its unique beauty (those autumns!), but can't beat home. I wonder how long it takes to live in a place where you weren't born and raised to mimic that affinity?
David, as a geologist dabbler, I was particularly delighted to hear the reference to your book "Stories in Stone" about the sandstone. When you say (here) "quarries in Connecticut composed of a 200-million-year old sandstone that formed during the last significant geological event in the east, the rupture of the supercontinent of Pangea and the opening of the Atlantic Ocean", it reminds me of the big story of the mountains in North American stretching to Scandinavia. That would be fun to revisit.
I enjoyed your comments on Boston, but confess I loved your introduction to "gowpen"...when I first saw it "half-gowpen" I guessed what you meant but didn't take the time to search it out-thanks for clarifying, I do love words!!
I have to admit that my eyes walked right by your "half-gowpen," failing to get my mind around that measure of a newly encountered word. Thanks for bringing attention to it, and to pointing to Shafak's blog to help me get a grip on what that familiar space-between-cupped-hands is called.
It is indeed a marvelous word to try out, and I like your hyphenated "In my half-gowpen, grains of red sand accumulated."
Trying to get a better grip on my own half-a-measure of understanding, I did a little search and landed at the Scots Language Center (https://www.scotslanguage.com/articles/view/id/3358) that
points to the word's arrival from old Norse, first recorded usage “ane grit gowpene of the gowk fart” around 1500. Getting my hands around that gives me a double handful to think about, and a chuckle in not knowing the proper translation of of "gowk fart."
Cupping my hands around a morning cuppa joe, I feel like I'm coming to understand it a little better. Gaining a feeling of warmth and familiarity in holding something in cupped hands, I did one final jump, finding William Blake's oft quoted poem "Auguries of Innocence" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43650/auguries-of-innocence) holding on to that same imagery when he begins:
"To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."
Talk about a double-handful, indeed.
Gowk fart, now there's a winner!
re: not feeling grounded in Boston. when i visit other cities, it takes me a while to resync my internal compass. your comments recalled a story from my seaplane flying days.
after learning to fly in the puget soound area and becoming very comfortable with the area, i went to florida and took a few lessons in a seaplane. immediately after popping off the water, i commented to the instructor, “wow, you actually could get lost here.” in pilot training you study not getting lost a lot but it never really sunk in her in the PNW where (a) all the water is N-S, (b) Mt Rainier, Mt Baker, and Olympics all form a triangle of navigational beacons. Florida by contrast, was just flatland dotted with puddles in every direction same-o same-o in every direction. I said to instructor, you give me vectors, i’ll fly the plane, he did, we got home. Later after a lot more flying and crossing the midwest a few times, I did get in sync with more subtle directional signs (think section line roads, and from afar the rockys are either E or W, running N or S),and there’s always the sun (well, not always but usually if i’m flying). So yeah, I never feel lost in the PNW. Ask me where something is and I’ll likely point my right index finger exactly in the right direction. Cape Disappointment, yeah, from here, it’s right over there behind and a little left of West Seattle Junction. Put me in Kansas, Hopeless.
ps: i just plotted out my bold assertion about where cape disappointment is from here. I was within about 5 degrees, good enough to navigate there. it's vector is a little more right of the junction than the left, but close enough.
Thx. Do you always point with your right index finger? I think other people point with other digits?
yes, but we call it the booger finger. the booger finger is the pointer finger is the index finger. it's quite versatile. the adjacent finger is the messaging finger. generally these days, i message with it hidden in a pocket so as to avoid violent retribution. now i've spent 10 minutes studying the word origin of index finger. sigh, i think i'll go back to something productive like reading my book about the history of spinach farming in New Jersey.
Like in Boston, precipitation amounts in Baltimore were also forecast based on 95 and 695, the beltway around the city. It seemed odd when I first moved there, but I became accustomed to it. And I can relate to the lack of geographical reference points: I spent a year living in Kansas, and once you left the town it was mile after mile of flat farmland. I felt lost not having a ridge line or even a few hills to anchor my place in space!
When I went to college in Missouri there were no mountains. Rolling hills and lakes weren't cutting it for this Seattle native. When I returned home I let loose a sigh of relief: MY MOUNTAINS! Olympics to the west, Cascade range to the east, and Mount Rainier, rising above the Cascade range. It felt like returning to my comfort zone and the familiarity of the mountains and Salish Sea was definitely "returning home" in the most primal sense.
I know that feeling!
I'm so amused by the reference to highways as dividing lines for weather patterns. "What ghost of Robert Moses it be that allowed interstates to control the weather?" made me LOL.
As a former NYC resident, born in CT, citizen of Seattle, hands down our City is better than Boston, except for mass transportation. Did you need an interpreter while there? 😄
At times. My theory is that Bostonians have a think about the letter R. Sometimes you add it to a word such as Frederick Lahr Olmsted. And sometimes you kick it out. Makes it fun to try and figure out what people are saying!
David, really enjoyed this post. Like you, I spent several years in Boston/Cambridge (attending grad school and working in the late 80s) and have been in Seattle ever since (having grown up in an even flatter place than Boston - southeastern Michigan). I like to think of my move from Boston to Seattle as just going a bit further west on I-90. Although Boston/Cambridge do not have a Mt Rainier, what they do have are iconic neighborhoods. My centering point(s) in Boston and Cambridge tended to be my favorite pubs in those neighborhoods: the Plough and Stars in Harvard Square, the Cantab Lounge in Central Square, and the Black Rose in Quincy Market!
Thanks. As you note, there are many ways to center one's self. And, I do like the variety of the neighborhoods in the Boston area.
So much of our sense of "home" is tied to place. I struggled when I lived in Michigan. Was a bit outraged when I was taken to Crystal Mountain to find it was neither a mountain, nor natural. Lake Michigan helped mimic the ocean a bit. But finally moved back West. "What can we do to make you stay?" "Can you relocate the mountains and sea?" Still love Michigan and appreciate its unique beauty (those autumns!), but can't beat home. I wonder how long it takes to live in a place where you weren't born and raised to mimic that affinity?
Melissa
Good question. I would imagine if varies but is also something that one can continue to grow via seeking connections to place.
David
David, as a geologist dabbler, I was particularly delighted to hear the reference to your book "Stories in Stone" about the sandstone. When you say (here) "quarries in Connecticut composed of a 200-million-year old sandstone that formed during the last significant geological event in the east, the rupture of the supercontinent of Pangea and the opening of the Atlantic Ocean", it reminds me of the big story of the mountains in North American stretching to Scandinavia. That would be fun to revisit.
Rick
Yeah, hard to imagine such a chain!
David
I enjoyed your comments on Boston, but confess I loved your introduction to "gowpen"...when I first saw it "half-gowpen" I guessed what you meant but didn't take the time to search it out-thanks for clarifying, I do love words!!