One of my favorite bloggers on the site “Naked Capitalism” is “from Mexico”. On June 4, 2013, he commented on the protests in Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey. “How,” he asks “do these places like Taksim Square get transformed into sacred spaces, taking on such immense symbolic significance and becoming larger than life? And even more surprising, this occurs to secularists.”
He refers to the historian of religion, Mircea Eliade and his theory that “sacredness is irrepressible”. Even atheists have privileged places different from others. Those are places where first loves occurred or the first time one visits a foreign city. It can be a book or your grandpa’s farm.
Last night a friend said that she was standing in line in a grocery store and a man behind her dressed in a natty tweed sports coat with salt and pepper hair softly said, “Ah, Channel Number 5.”
Surprised she turned and said, “How did you know?”
“Ah,” he sighed, “the first woman I fell in love with wore it.”
What are your sacred places, tastes or smells?