I grew up in Minnesota in the suburbs, about half an hour north of Minneapolis. The specific places present in my mind are the parks and nature trails by my house and the corn fields of my extended family in Iowa.
Three Rivers Park district is a huge natural area with wide paths for bikers and pedestrians. In the summers, my family would go on bike rides on weekends; during the week, my brother and I would bike to the gym. Towards the end of my gymnastics career, I didn’t want to go to the gym, it felt forced, so I would take my sweet time biking through the trails; breathing in the fresh air; listening to the cicadas and the birds chirping. It was peaceful, quiet, but filled with sounds, void of people but overgrowing with life.
I was born in Iowa, but my family moved before I was even a year old. All of my memories of Iowa are from visiting family there. I come from a family of farmers. My great grandfather had a farm, I think he mostly grew corn. When he and my great grandmother got too old to take care of themselves, they moved in with my great aunt, who also married a farmer. Their land is still being farmed by the family, but no one lives there. I went to visit a few years ago and it was just as I remembered. there was still the big red tractor, the fields of yellow that went on as far as the eye can see. Corn fields in the golden hour have always resonated with me. I didn’t grow up there, I know nothing about farming, but I know it’s where my family’s history lies, and it’s reminiscent of those road trips and family visits. The midwest has the bluest sky I’ve ever seen. As the sun sets and gets low on the horizon, its beams shine through the corn fields making them glow. The warm, yellow glow of the corn against the bluest sky is such a simple landscape, but so powerful. No image does it justice.
When I turned 18, I moved to Massachusetts to go to college. I’ve been here almost 4 years now. Place and home are interesting to think about. While I feel some attachment to those nature trails and the corn fields, I never felt like I was home in either place. I always felt out of place. Coming here I continued to feel out of place because so few UMassD students seem to have grown up outside of New England. If I’m honest I still don’t feel like I’ve found my home, but I do find places like the nature trails and corn fields that give me a sense of peace. I discovered Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary near Horseneck Beach the first weekend I moved here and I’ve been going ever since. There’s nothing like the sound of the waves to silence all woes.
Kingsolver wrote in her final paragraph, “people need wild places. Whether or not we think we do, we do. . . To be surrounded by a singing, mating, howling commotion of other species, all of which love their lives as much as we do ours, and none of which could possibly care less about our economic status or our running day calendar. Wildness puts us in our place. It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd.” I wholly agree with this. Most of my experiences with nature make me feel removed from society, removed from the trivialities of life; simple, peaceful and reflective. I didn’t make this connection until about a year ago, however acknowledging the impact being with nature has on my being has simultaneously strengthened and weakened my sense of self. Being able to search inside my mind and cultivate my morals and beliefs in nature has allowed me to grow and change and feel at home within myself, no matter the place. It helps me to put everything into perspective.
Williams wrote, “once strengthened by our association with the wild, we can return to family and community. Each of us belongs to a particular landscape, one that informs who we are, a place that carries our history, our dreams, holds us to a moral line of behavior that transcends thought.” I agree that we are benefitted and strengthened by being in nature / the wilderness, but I don’t think I completely agree that we each belong to a particular landscape to which we will one day return. I believe it’s important to travel and see many different places, landscapes, and people. Associating with many different landscapes give a person a broader, more inclusive perspective, rather than living in the echo chamber of a singular place. A person matures and is strengthened by exploration and experiencing new and different landscapes, and through the process a person will find the landscape they are attracted to and feel associated with. I felt like Williams was implying that the landscape we belong to must be the same as the landscape our family belongs to, or the place we grew up. I, like many others, only ever wanted to leave the place I grew up, move away from my family, and to step out in my own right. I don’t have much to say about William’s bedrock of democracy, because I think her initial statements on landscape, as I explained, are flawed.
Sources
Barbara Kingsolver’s “Small Wonder”
http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transcript_smallwonder_print.html
Terry Tempest Williams’ “Home Work”
Hi Erica! You make some great points in your post. I love the way you describe the corn fields. Your statement that no image can do it justice resonates well with the conflict Williams describes of feeling unable to adequately describe the land. I think both of these concepts demonstrate how nothing can quite capture the feeling one gets from a place like actually being there and experiencing it yourself. I agree that being exposed to a variety of places, or more specifically the people with different experiences in these places, broadens our perspectives. I especially loved your statement about personal growth being about learning to feel at home within yourself, regardless of your physical place. I agree that this is something we should all strive for, and think that on the way there being in places and around people that make you feel safe and encourage this growth is super helpful. Great post!
Erica,
That’s awesome that you come from a family of farmers. I feel that farmers don’t get enough credit, as we just get spoiled with grocery stores and fast food in our community. So, on behalf of our society, tell your family thank you (or at least tell them I say thank you)! A move from Iowa to Massachusetts is definitely a change. I remember coming here from Arizona, and it was such a drastic difference. Arizona’s dryness, and Massachusetts green life, it was like seeing something from a painting come to life around me. Even though I was born in AZ, I found my place and home in MA. It’s great that you learned so much not just about the different culture, but about yourself in the process. It’s crazy to think about how different places can affect us in different ways!
Great post,
Rachel 🙂
Hi Erica,
I really connected with your idea that nature allows us to remove ourselves from society. I feel like, when we take a step out of our every day world and into the unknowns of nature, we are reminded that most of our world is socially constructed and therefore, insignificant to the greater meaning of life. Why do you think that is? I think part of it is that we can see how interconnected all of nature is, and that we are not totally dependent without it. We would be gone without the nature around us, yet it is not constructed into our daily lives. We are living our lives disconnected to our roots with nature. Living in Boston, it is easy for me to go from morning to night without seeing grass or without hearing birds chirping because this isn’t suitable with city living. I find I become more wrapped up in what is socially told is important to me like work, money, school. Could finding our roots be the sort of saving our society needs?