Boundage.
Being 2.5-dimensional means that the walk from Brattle St. to Mt. Auburn St. is mostly an experience of being surrounded by trees. Some thought may be given to the pavement underfoot, but little to the sky. Going down Sparks St. is as green and pleasant as just about anywhere; wealth buys large houses covered and secluded and secreted by even larger trees. People walk around inside the corridor in suits and carrying cellos and going to bus stops and doing any number of things besides, through the verdant warren in shades mostly only of grey and green.
You could nap on the little green patches at strange intersections, or busk or stand or wait.
At Mt. Auburn, though, the habitrail and its illusions fall away; the fixedness of axes and dimensions is given up. Beyond Mt. Auburn St. lies Mem. Drive and then the serpentine River Charles. And a chasm stretches forth, and the green is no more: there the blue of sky becomes the nearest southern wall, and suddenly things like north and south do seem more pertinent than the likes of left and right, of forward and backward. There is no more warren but there is a world beyond.
The sky sinks down there just to one side, as lush treed Cambridge rises back to the north. The temptation is to retreat almost, or at least to step back like looking over too steep a ledge, as though Memorial Drive had somehow become the cliff's face, on top of a ridge below which lies the whole rest of the world. Suddenly up matters, and up is front and back, side-to-side, too. There is no green canopy but there is a blue one, and if it is up then it is everywhere and all around.
Suddenly the trees don't seem to matter much, or to offer enough of a boundary to hold one in. Indeed there is not any kind of boundary at all. It is left to me to rein myself in before I blow over that ledge, to step back before it is too late, and yet also to know that there is nowhere left to step, nowhere that is not in some manner ledge, cliff and fall. I can no longer be constrained to my most comfortable two-and-some dimensions, but must live with three or four and never-ending motion. It is one thing for me to say that no human being has ever been still, but there is the observation deck of ever-spinning spaceship Earth. Hanging out into the blue abyss, standing back to the trees, staring perpetually-south across Mt. Auburn St. and Memorial Drive and even the Charles, too.
You could nap on the little green patches at strange intersections, or busk or stand or wait.
At Mt. Auburn, though, the habitrail and its illusions fall away; the fixedness of axes and dimensions is given up. Beyond Mt. Auburn St. lies Mem. Drive and then the serpentine River Charles. And a chasm stretches forth, and the green is no more: there the blue of sky becomes the nearest southern wall, and suddenly things like north and south do seem more pertinent than the likes of left and right, of forward and backward. There is no more warren but there is a world beyond.
The sky sinks down there just to one side, as lush treed Cambridge rises back to the north. The temptation is to retreat almost, or at least to step back like looking over too steep a ledge, as though Memorial Drive had somehow become the cliff's face, on top of a ridge below which lies the whole rest of the world. Suddenly up matters, and up is front and back, side-to-side, too. There is no green canopy but there is a blue one, and if it is up then it is everywhere and all around.
Suddenly the trees don't seem to matter much, or to offer enough of a boundary to hold one in. Indeed there is not any kind of boundary at all. It is left to me to rein myself in before I blow over that ledge, to step back before it is too late, and yet also to know that there is nowhere left to step, nowhere that is not in some manner ledge, cliff and fall. I can no longer be constrained to my most comfortable two-and-some dimensions, but must live with three or four and never-ending motion. It is one thing for me to say that no human being has ever been still, but there is the observation deck of ever-spinning spaceship Earth. Hanging out into the blue abyss, standing back to the trees, staring perpetually-south across Mt. Auburn St. and Memorial Drive and even the Charles, too.