geomantic

Not too long ago, I ran across this line from the Adagia by Wallace Stevens:

“Life is an affair of people not places. But for me life is an affair of places and that is the trouble.”

I should quickly add that I have never read Wallace Stevens and am completely unfamiliar with his work. So, I can’t really comment on the line within the larger context of his body of work. It’s a clever turn of phrase and wonderfully poetic, but not universally true. Life is seldom so neatly segmented and mutually exclusive. In reality, Life is an affair of people in the context of place. Or, conversely, Life is an affair of places and how people relate to them.