I’ve planned to write more in 2025 but I’ve had a hard time starting. Then, a few days ago, my sister shared this newspaper clipping that my parents saved from the Real Estate Section of the Jamaica Gleaner on 4th April 1998 and I felt inspired. This piece has reminded me of how long I’ve felt strongly about placemaking, about leading by design and I think it’s a great way to get my writing going again. Here is the full composition.
Pathetic Fallacy
My name is Leah
I live at 1184 Anonymous Street
I live in a project
You may have drafted
And let me tell you:
You and your standards
Where I live is not a ‘unit’
I am not a statistic
I am a real person.
I long to feel at home
A sense of place
To belong here
There are days
I’d like to curl up in a corner
And feel at peace
But there is nothing here
Worth remembering
Nothing I’d call my ‘own’.
Sometimes I get lost,
Lost in this scheme
Of things
Not made for me
Or anyone real
They all look the same
The same colour
The same size
The same shapes
And soon…
The same faces,
Is that what you see?
I’m grateful,
Don’t get me wrong –
For a space to live
A roof
A floor
And walls
Ten by ten by ten
Thank God for windows
My only escape
If I turn my head
At just the right angle
I can see the mountains
Or, perhaps, the sea
Life with a purpose.
You are the one
With the power
By the wave of your wrist
And with a little imagination
I could have had a garden
A patch of ground
A tree, a view,
A memorable place
And maybe
A more meaningful life.
My name is Leah
I live in a box,
With windows
Ten by ten by ten
And no hope of personality:
Was it the Housing Trust,
Or the Public Works,
Or was it you?
Did you design this?
Who is Leah?
She is a little girl who lives in a high-rise tenement, she is a college student with her first apartment in the city; she is a mother of two who lives in a small government subsidised house; she is a retiree who has been placed in a nursing home. She is a real person. Architects design these places and they are inhabited by real people.
When you get the opportunity, build a memorable place to help make life meaningful.
Pathetic Fallacy is the descriptive humanising of inanimate objects.
