Freewrite on the word Displacment by Emily Searle-White

                                                    

Displacement.

Dis-pla-cement.

Dis means un, means de, means not – means no longer. Displacement.

Pla – means fish in Thai – fish and water. Water is displaced – by hands, spoons, boats and bodies. Water is displaced.

Cement. Not something that is often displaced. If it is displaced, it is broken.

Source

People are displaced. Their displacement can be measured by miles, but it also can’t. Can concepts be displaced, or are they removed or changed? Evolving ideas shift the meaning of words gradually with every utterance – after a time, concepts may be displaced, but not the way people are.

A displaced person is still who they are. But as soon as they are where they are and know why, they are changed.

A stone drops into water, the water opens up. It actually cannot resist, gravity pulls the stone down and the water yields and for a second, there’s a valley on the surface. Then the rush out is replaced by the pull in and from all sides, ripples come together. They crash. They move apart again. Then back together. Each time smaller. Has the surface of the water risen infinitesimally by the volume of water displaced by the stone? Intuition nods but my eyes can’t see it. In a bowl, perhaps, but not in the Atlantic. My eyes would not notice if a plane sunk in the Atlantic if they did not see it falling.

What is the name for that which takes the place of something that was displaced?