Revisiting

The Ponzo Effect (1913)

The weekend of my Father's 70th Birthday celebration we ended up on a family trip with the younger contingent, to Fota Island a wildlife park. I remember going with my parents and daughter when she was younger and vaguely remember going with my parents when I was a child. 

I had that feeling of nostalgia expanding and contracting with my memory. It was bigger and smaller than I remembered it, partially because of my bad memory and partially because it had expanded and developed as a park. I was planning on going again the following week as part of a work trip and wondered if then it would get smaller, as most places do when you revisit them, not just because you are not a small child anymore and the world is so big but because knowledge brings the world in closer, makes it more familiar.

As Erich Kästner puts it: 

It is always the same. Whether you are walking or going by train, the way always seems shorter the second time than the first. (And that is true of distances that are not to be measured in miles and yards.)

Maybe its also a metaphor for reflective practice.

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Kästner, E. (2002) Emil and the Three Twins, Random House