A Sense of Place
Reposted from my April 2023 newsletter, edited for this platform.
I had a chance to see green in the landscape this week.
A quick trip back to New England for business purposes allowed me to switch out the white and gray of a long-winters' end in Alaska for bright greens of all varieties. A refreshing and soothing change.
Something that's been on my mind, though, fits right into a return to home. That is, what constitutes a sense of place?
I left my heart in California years ago, where my husband and I both attended graduate school. Our little family had its start there, too. All the following years living in New Hampshire didn't change my feelings about California, although it came pretty close.
Now living in Alaska, my heart seems torn. Is California where I left my heart? Or did my heart root itself in New Hampshire without telling me?
Don't get me wrong, I am not a homebody. I've traveled enough around this country, lived in a number of states, to know that I can put down shallow roots and stay a time in many different places.
Still, I wonder, why do some places put down roots in one's heart, and not others? What's that about? How does it happen?
In episode 288 of the podcast Humans Outside, Amy Bushatz and I talked last month about my struggle to feel relaxed and comfortable in Alaska because of "bearanoia" (loosely translated as a fear of bears) and a few other scary "what ifs", and how I am taking very measured, conscious steps towards overcoming this, enough anyway so that I can get outside to do my work.
My field journal is key to this goal.
The thing is, I am not sure even my field journal will help develop in me a strong sense of place for Alaska. But... maybe? Is it happening right now and I just don't know it?
As I wrote on this month's journal page, even though a "sense of place" has yet to transfer to Alaska for me, I can understand why some feel a deep love for it.
This all has me wondering about the idea of a sense of place. What defines it? How does it develop? Why does it seem to happen quicker for some people – or for some locations – and maybe not at all for others?
In my case, I suppose it has a lot to do with the natural world. My time in California was an awakening of the soul! Really, the first period of my life completely engaged with the natural world, full of wide-eyed wonder.
Oh, how absorbed I was in learning everything I could about the natural world through intentional observation and drawing from life!
Moving back to New England was equally exciting, setting up years of exploration and discovery in the place I grew up but, during those formative years, having no connection at all to nature; no idea of the breadth and depth of what it offers; the importance to our own survival, indeed, the magic and wonder it holds!
I know the trees at home. I know the resident birds and many of the visitors. The wildflowers are my friends, as are the reptiles and amphibians. The mountains, the mammals, the vernal pools and other wetlands.
The woodland scents, the sounds of spring. All have become part of me.
Is this what takes hold of one's soul, deeply embedded to become a sense of place?
I expect to be traveling a fair bit in the next few years and, as I do, this question of "sense of place" will travel with me, astir in my mind.
What or where is your sense of place? How do you view this idea? Are you firmly connected to a place? I'd be very interested in your response. Seriously, whatever it might be, I'm interested.