The quote is from Wordsworth’s Imagination and Taste, How Impaired and Restored. He goes on to say that these “spots of time” “with distinct pre-eminence retain a renovating virtue […].” This aligns perfectly with a belief of mine that it’s the events we remember which change us including our imagination and taste. Whether this change is an impairment or an aid isn’t as easily stated. Regardless, Wordsworth’s idea is more specific than that; he speaks here of only memories with a renovating virtue.

As I sit propped up on my dorm bed (something I’ve done far too often the past six years) I question how exactly a spot of time can retain anything and if it did how could we ever access it again except in the abstraction of memory. Plenty of times (especially on a dorm bed) I’ve wished for a spot of time with renovating virtues. I’ve wished for trips to Moscow and Trinidad. I’ve wished to see people far away or long gone. I’ve wished for a spontaneous spiritual renewal and physical renovation, wrongly. Wordsworth specified renovating virtues are experienced outside of “false opinion and contentious thought, or aught of heavier or more deadly weight, in trivial occupations, and the round of ordinary intercourse”.

In Uruguay, I won’t be involved in any trivial occupations and there certainly won’t be any rounds of ordinary intercourse or any ordinary behavior for that matter. I’ll keep the web updated on any and all experiences of renovating virtues.