Parkhurst The Delaware

It is a kind of love, is it not? How the cup holds the tea, How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare, How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes Or toes. How soles of feet know Where they’re supposed to be. I’ve been thinking about the patience Of ordinary things, how clothes Wait respectfully in closets And soap dries quietly in the dish, And towels drink the wet From the skin of the back. And the lovely repetition of stairs. And what is more generous than a window? — Pat Schneider, "The Patience of Ordinary Things" I come from a blue collar family in Southeast Asia. By all accounts, I shouldn't be here, but by an insane stroke of luck and a whole lot of help, I am now pursuing a philosophy phd at one of the most prestigious universities in the US. And these boots have been with me along the way. They haven’t been through the most extreme conditions. The worst, probably, is the Bostonian winter. Second to that: the constant knocking against the leg of the library desk where I spend most of my time. Over time, they have become more than just footwear—they now make up a part of the subject of my dissertation. My work explores how we form meaningful relationships with inanimate objects, how many mundane things quietly shape the way we live, how they demand particular rituals of us, anchor us in time, and add rhythms to our days—and most importantly, how they remind us of the people without whom we would never be where we are.