Random thought of the week

I used to think that genius loci referred to an actual ghostly being that wafted around a tree, say, or a set of rocks. Now I think —

Well, you know you can go a year or two years or five without speaking to a friend, and then you call her on the phone and along with her voice you hear her personality? The force of her personality, her own self, flows through the phone lines. After two minutes of conversation you know she is unchanged in essentials. It makes you laugh, it makes you happy, to find that she is still so very distinctly herself.

I think places can be like that. They can have a personality or an essence you can feel. That's the genius loci.

Photo credit to my sister-in-law.