Reflection

Living Away from Blessings: School Failure as Lived Experience.

I am eight years old and my grandmother and I are strolling across the front yard on our way to the lake.  Grandmother is holding my hand, a hand that is happily swaying back and forth.  Will there be any fish in the basket? What if we have caught the old pike?  As we reach the road the stillness of the dawn is shattered by the sound of a roaring car engine.  My grandmother lets go of my hand, and puts her arms around my body, holding me close, as if she is shielding me. Suddenly the car comes around the bend; an old, black Chevrolet. The roaring from the engine is now accompanied by rock music.  Inside the car are four young men all dressed in black, their hair artistically sculptured into greasy waves.  Beer bottles in hands casually hanging through the open car windows keep time to the music.  As they drive past us, they shout four-lettered words, whose meaning I am too young to understand.

(Henriksson, p. 27)

·   Using the wholistic or sententious approach identified by van Manen (p. 94), I came up with the following statements: 

“A grandmother’s reaction is to protect her grandchild in the face of possible danger.”
"Adults protect children."

·   I also reflected on this piece through the use of the four existential of lived space (spatiality), lived body (corporeality), lived time (temporality), and lived other (relationality):

I am eight years old and my grandmother and I are strolling across the front yard on our way to the lake-lived time (temporality)

Grandmother is holding my hand, a hand that is happily swaying back and forth-lived body (corporeality)

What if we have caught the old pike?-lived time (temporality)

As we reach the road the stillness of the dawn is shattered by the sound of a roaring car engine-lived space (spatiality)

My grandmother lets go of my hand, and puts her arms around my body, holding me close, as if she is shielding me-lived body (corporeality)

Suddenly the car comes around the bend; an old, black Chevrolet-lived time (temporality)

The roaring from the engine is now accompanied by rock music-lived space (spatiality)

Inside the car are four young men all dressed in black, their hair artistically sculptured into greasy waves-lived body (corporeality)

Beer bottles in hands casually hanging through the open car windows keep time to the music. As they drive past us, they shout four-lettered words, whose meaning I am too young to understand-lived time (temporality)

The descriptions of lived body and the lived space highlight the importance of the interaction between the grandmother and child.  As the security of the lived space changes from happy to threatening, through the introduction of the “dawn is shattered by the sound of a roaring car engine” and “the roaring from the car engine is now accompanied by rock music”, so too does the positioning of the grandmother and child change.  This change is described by “from holding my hand, a hand that is happily swaying back and forth” to “My grandmother lets go of my hand, and puts her arms around my body, holding me close, as if she is shielding me.”  This highlights the interaction between lived body and lived spaces by putting the grandmother in a protective stance in relation to the child.  The descriptions of lived time focus the situation and provides the sense of changes in time from slow and relaxed in the beginning with the sentence, “I am eight years old and my grandmother and I are strolling across the front yard on our way to the lake” to immediate and fast paces “suddenly the car comes around the bend..”, giving the sense of urgency and interruption.  “Beer bottles in hands casually hang through the open car windows keep time to the music” gives the impression that the urgency is coming from the grandmother and child, not from the people in the car. “I am too young to understand.” The child senses that there is more to the situation but does not know what it is and thinks that it is because of their youth. 

 

Although I have identified the two sections with the grandmother and grandchild as lived body, I think that these two could be identified as lived relation because of the sense of interpersonal significance. I think that this is a good example of a short and strong anecdote that resonates with me when I read it. I think that it is very plausible.