Noticing Absence

How do we notice what isn’t there? Or what is there to notice when something is gone? In a recent piece for The Art of Noticing, Rob Walker writes about noticing something that isn’t there anymore, using a phrase he says is very New Orleans, “ain’t dere no more.” He even takes a picture of what isn’t there, as though that could capture the experience of knowing what was there before.

Colson Whitehead, in “City Limits,” the introduction to his book, The Colossus of New York, also writes about changes to the city, claiming that each of us has own own New York with all the places that were there when we first got to know it. In the newspaper version of this essay, “The Way We Live Now: 11-11-01; Lost and Found” published in the New York Times on November 11, 2001, he writes:

There are eight million naked cities in this naked city — they dispute and disagree. The New York City you live in is not my New York City; how could it be? This place multiplies when you’re not looking. We move over here, we move over there. Over a lifetime, that adds up to a lot of neighborhoods, the motley construction material of your jerry-built metropolis. Your favorite newsstands, restaurants, movie theaters, subway stations and barbershops are replaced by your next neighborhood’s favorites. It gets to be quite a sum. Before you know it, you have your own personal skyline.

Later in the book introduction, he writes: “I never got a chance to say good-bye to some of my old buildings. Some I lived in, others were part of a skyline I thought would always be there. And they never got a chance to say goodbye to me. I think they would have liked to–I refuse to believe in their indifference.” But in the newspaper version published just two months after September 11, 2001, his sentiments are more direct, more raw, writing instead of just any buildings, “I never got a chance to say goodbye to the twin towers.”

So it seems like a fitting time to write about absence.

When you walk around, where do you notice absence? What kind of absence do you notice? In this noticing post, you might write about one absence, like a building that isn’t there anymore, or maybe smaller absences, like when a plant changes seasonally, or when people aren’t in a place anymore. You choose. This is an opportunity to be very detailed, but also perhaps more abstract in how you think about absence.

Try to write again approximately 250 words. Use the Category Noticing Series and Noticing Absence, plus any other tags you want.

Add a featured image and include a photo credit at the end of your post.

Please share your post by 9/17.

• Noticing absence
  Noticing absences is something that has been very present in my life since I moved from my country to this country, many people like family, friends and close people are no longer present in my life. I used to see them every day and all the time I used to be by their side at… 
• Noticing absence
  I’ve definitely felt some absences since being in college. First of being social life wise, in high school I saw the same friends every Monday through Friday and we had many classes together or at least lunch. In college I feel like I haven been able to make any as deep connections with anyone simply… 
• Noticing absence
  Since starting college, I have noticed some absence in my life .In high school, I had classes Monday throught Friday and my classes were always full ,But now in college. I’m only go from Monday to Thursday and I have fewer classes at first it’s felt nice, but sometimes the extra times feels strange because… 
• Nothing Absences
  Within four weeks into college I notice a gap in my daily routine. In high school, I attended classes Monday through Friday, but now I attend classes Monday through Thursday in college, which has less hours and one to three classes. I’ve seen that while high school was more difficult to travel to, and this… 
• Noticing Absence
  During senior year of school, I noticed that most of my friends and classmates were moving away for college or taking a different path in life than I currently am. As the end of the year approached, fewer and fewer people came to school, and I felt like everyone was ready to move on and… 
• Noticing Absence
  Absence is something we only notice after it shapes itself within us after leaving us with nothing, a reminder that what we once took for granted was never forever. Absence can be seen as a person, a place, a smell, or anything that once made us feel like ourselves, like “me”. In a way, it… 
• Noticing absence
  Absence is something we experience every day. We often notice it in places, objects, and especially in people and sometimes, it has a real impact on our lives. Personally, I’ve felt the absence of people the most. When I moved to this country, I really felt the absence of my family. Going from seeing them… 
• The absence of experience.
  As a kid, I learnt growing up was perceived differently by different kids around me, we all wanted different things, mainly because we all grew up in different worlds, some saw more whereas some saw less.But those things tend to change into something much more realistic what most of us had in common was how… 
• Noticing Absence
  With 4 weeks into college I notice a absence in my daily schedule, In high school I had school from Monday_Friday while in college I now go from Monday-Wednesday, Where there’s fewer hours and one to three classes. I notice that College is easier to commute and go to work to while high school was… 
• ABSENCE
  Absence is a peculiar thing. It’s not something you can see, yet it can be so tangible. It’s the ghost of what was, and it often appears most vividly when you’re not looking for it. I notice absence most in the smallest, boring places I know. There’s a certain house on my street that, for… 
• 
  Absence
  Where I live there’s a ton of apartment complexes and homes but right in front of my building there’s a park so construction going on wasn’t unusual but there was one apartment building that always had construction done on. I lived right next to that apartment building and was also in front of the park.…