Alexandria, VA – Where you sit is where you stand. The first time I heard that was from the director of a national association of state agencies where I worked. The director who used it was referring to Miles Law (named after Rufus Edward Miles, a U.S. government administrator). The idea is that a person’s perspective is shaped by their life experiences and environment and that, in turn, a person’s experiences are shaped by their upbringing, education, social network, and economic status.
The phrase can also be applied to a person’s position in an organization and how that impacts his or her stance on an issue. I witnessed this on a regular basis, seeing first-hand that the stands taken by administrators of agricultural states most often differed from those of manufacturing states, such as those dominated by the automobile industry.
It makes perfect sense to me. But on a more personal level, I’ve been musing on where I sit and where others choose to sit when they visit my home.
There is a group of women who have been meeting monthly at my home for almost 25 years. We call ourselves the Tawandas after the battle cry of the protagonist in the movie “Fried Green Tomatoes.” (We know we’ve misspelled Tawanda (it should be Towanda) but we’ve been doing it for so long, we decided to keep it as our own.)
Recently, one member of our group asked whether a particular piece of art had always been on that wall. Yes, it had always been there but she didn’t usually sit where she was that day. Where you sit is also what you see!
In my daily bus rides from Centreville to my job in DC long ago, most commuters always sat in the same seat. Same at church. Most choose the same seat. I wondered why.
In a 2018 Quartz magazine article, author Shekhar Chandra asked: “Do you always sit in the same chair when you enter a conference room, select the same bike each time you take a spin class, or choose the same side of the plane when pre-selecting a seat?”
According to Chandra, “It’s not just you: It’s environmental psychology…This behavior is an expression of ‘territoriality,’ a spatial organizing mechanism that expresses itself in surprising ways.”
“Usually territoriality is thought of in terms of aggression and defense, such as when nations or gangs fight,” said University of Victoria psychology professor Robert Gifford, in a quote for the piece, “but actually its most common purpose is to keep the peace. Most of the time most people claim a space and others tacitly agree to it.”
In the case of classrooms, most students choose the same seat over and over, developing personal territories around it, which makes them feel more comfortable. A study by Gilles Clement of Lyon Neuroscience Research Center and Angie Buckley of International Space University found that students start settling into their preferred seats from the second day of class, By the end of the the study’s first month, over half of the students were sitting in the same seat every time.
For years, when riding Metro, my eldest daughter Julie Halperson always tried to sit in a particular seat that offered a reflection of herself taking a selfie.
In her first and only photography contest entry to date, Julie took home a second-place award seven years ago for her “Reflection Selfie” in the Young at Art contest – sponsored by Senior Services of Alexandria and Goodwin House Foundation – for people 55 years and over.
I almost always have breakfast at a window in my dining room, where I can see a statue of a seated Buddha, two birdhouses, and a six-foot-tall copper spinner.
How about you? Where do you choose to sit? And what do you see?
Mosaic Artist/Photographer Nina Tisara is the founder of Living Legends of Alexandria
ICYMI: Memories & Musings: On Creative Partnerships
