Wendell Berry knows the importance of place.
“If you have no land,” he writes, “you have nothing: no food, no shelter, no warmth, no freedom, no life . . . I don’t think that being landed necessarily means owning land. It does mean being connected to a home landscape . . . The land is a gift of immeasurable value.”
I have learned, in my wanderings from place to place—Iowa to Egypt, Chicago to Charlotte, Midwest to mountain west—how right he is, how, unless I am connected to the landscape, I am not connected to a place at all.
My earliest connecting place—and the one to which I somehow keep returning—is in Sioux Center, Iowa, a little town tucked away in the northwest corner of the state. My connection to this landscape consists of lying on a soccer field, feeling cool dewy grass beneath my fingertips and seeing bright stars glimmering in the dark sky above. In that simple act of touching the earth with skull, spine, calves, palms, I feel linked not only to rural Iowa but to all of creation—sky, wind, earth, breath—and to God. Strange, perhaps, that something as mundane as a soccer field could provide a path to God, could heal (without fail) my tired and bruised spirit; strange, yes, that spending fifteen minutes lying on the precisely-clipped grass will almost always calm and quiet me.
My place of quiet and calm shifted to the shores of Lake Michigan when I lived in Chicago. The vast stretch of water, shifting and shimmering from deepest blue to green to silver, reminded me of long rows of corn and soybeans, changing colors as they shivered in the wind. But I discovered a new love, sitting on the edge of the lake. My eye was constantly drawn to that line between water and sky: the horizon, luring me, causing tears to lodge in the back of my throat, inspiring profusions of words that poured onto the pages of my journal. In the horizon I discovered a physical representation of hope.
I have never owned land. But so long as I have such places, places as simple as a soccer field or a lake, a place to be silent, a place to be healed, I recognize, and am grateful for, the gift of land. And for those few moments, I am an owner. I have bought that bit of space with the weight of my body, the reverence in my soul.
“If you have no land,” he writes, “you have nothing: no food, no shelter, no warmth, no freedom, no life . . . I don’t think that being landed necessarily means owning land. It does mean being connected to a home landscape . . . The land is a gift of immeasurable value.”
I have learned, in my wanderings from place to place—Iowa to Egypt, Chicago to Charlotte, Midwest to mountain west—how right he is, how, unless I am connected to the landscape, I am not connected to a place at all.
My earliest connecting place—and the one to which I somehow keep returning—is in Sioux Center, Iowa, a little town tucked away in the northwest corner of the state. My connection to this landscape consists of lying on a soccer field, feeling cool dewy grass beneath my fingertips and seeing bright stars glimmering in the dark sky above. In that simple act of touching the earth with skull, spine, calves, palms, I feel linked not only to rural Iowa but to all of creation—sky, wind, earth, breath—and to God. Strange, perhaps, that something as mundane as a soccer field could provide a path to God, could heal (without fail) my tired and bruised spirit; strange, yes, that spending fifteen minutes lying on the precisely-clipped grass will almost always calm and quiet me.
My place of quiet and calm shifted to the shores of Lake Michigan when I lived in Chicago. The vast stretch of water, shifting and shimmering from deepest blue to green to silver, reminded me of long rows of corn and soybeans, changing colors as they shivered in the wind. But I discovered a new love, sitting on the edge of the lake. My eye was constantly drawn to that line between water and sky: the horizon, luring me, causing tears to lodge in the back of my throat, inspiring profusions of words that poured onto the pages of my journal. In the horizon I discovered a physical representation of hope.
I have never owned land. But so long as I have such places, places as simple as a soccer field or a lake, a place to be silent, a place to be healed, I recognize, and am grateful for, the gift of land. And for those few moments, I am an owner. I have bought that bit of space with the weight of my body, the reverence in my soul.
I miss you! And you are my sister.
ReplyDeleteMy place would have to be in cornfield. Or near a cornfield. Or near trees with fall colors, full of sunshine.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's probably a good thing you're in Iowa, then. Lots of cornfields to be had!
ReplyDeleteWhy do you not post, sister dear?
ReplyDeleteBecause I so rarely have time, oh sister. One must keep up on such things as the World Series when the White Sox are actually in the running!
ReplyDeleteYea, you posted.
ReplyDelete