I have come to believe that to know myself deeply. I need to know the place where I stand.
Where I “stand”, where I call home, is not just about a roof, four walls, and a plot of dirt; it is the basis for who I am. Although the structure helps inform where and how I spend my days, and where I raise and gather my family, it is also where I build my sense of place—it is my familiar foundation and my footing.
As a gardener and steward of my soil, I’ve come to realize the concept of perennial life through my planting practice, always amazed each spring to see the return of decades old day lilies my great-grandmother first planted on my generational farm, or the Bearded-Iris bulbs return-- the dozens her mother entrusted to her, packed in a valise from abroad as an immigrant.
The story of my perennials, my farm, my place, is a part of a long legacy where my roots have been allowed to spread wide and deep and long. My love of nature and gardening is persistent, and when I look back, I realize my love of being rooted informs me of who I am.
This is a beautiful illustration of home and place, Ryder. It reminds me of Ruth Ozeki's All Over Creation, and also of the healing effects of gardening several people I know have described during the pandemic. Thank you for sharing!
My home hasn’t been found among the humans who I share DNA and those who you raised me. My home has never been made out of wood and glass from any childhood homes I’ve lived in. My home isn’t in any fleeting memories or experienced Ive been a part of, whether pleasant or not. My home isn’t even found being around nature that I have always admired and adored. Instead, I prefer to define my home as coming back to the higher source deep within myself. The constant and always, my place of comfort. Connected to a world beyond that is revealed in due time. My Protector, the originator who formed not only my limbs, but already knew most everything about me. While I am one who craves change and newness, this heartfelt space within has been, is and will forever be regardless of where I am in space and time. My home is mysterious, an enigma. My home is full of so much love it moves me without me having to move anywhere.
I spent my early 20s wandering the globe within parameters that felt safe. I always had a purpose, often a job. I craved seeing and knowing as many different kinds of human and natural spaces and ways of being as could possibly exist. I also knew from some college travel experience that I would be able to see, hear, feel and think about it all best if I had some externally-recognized reason for being in these new places at all. Gradually, I shifted my work and appetites to my home country, recognizing that for all the things I was learning about other places and people I was losing ground in my own. And while I feel a void from the lack of international travel and living in my life today, I have never regretted the choice.
The vastness of America and its people means that it has so many spaces and ways of being to explore, and so many life paths to offer. It cannot offer me a British life, or a European life, or a West African life. But living here gives me a common foundation with others that I can probe with confidence. Learning to be an American can last a lifetime. There are so many answers to one single question.
Traveling and living as widely as I have, I know in my bones that no one place can be everything to me, and that I will always be most alive, and most content, when I can enjoy mobility and variety from a rooted foundation. If I could never leave my home country again I would mourn that loss deeply. But I would not be without new horizons to feed my appetite.
This is exactly what my parents did after many years of travel around the world by foot--hiking, trekking.In their later years, Eleanor. They decided on the American West as their next adventure, and fell in love with it. There is so much to see and experience in this world, sometimes one only has to pass to of their own boundaries to explore the bounty.
So true, Ryder. It's fascinating to me to think of the differences between what a local sees in a place like Lander, WY, or Venice, Italy, and what a tourist sees. There are so many wonderful layers everywhere. Knowing, and feeling able to continually open, our own presets and expectations to a new place, can turn one planet into infinite worlds.
I have come to believe that to know myself deeply. I need to know the place where I stand.
Where I “stand”, where I call home, is not just about a roof, four walls, and a plot of dirt; it is the basis for who I am. Although the structure helps inform where and how I spend my days, and where I raise and gather my family, it is also where I build my sense of place—it is my familiar foundation and my footing.
As a gardener and steward of my soil, I’ve come to realize the concept of perennial life through my planting practice, always amazed each spring to see the return of decades old day lilies my great-grandmother first planted on my generational farm, or the Bearded-Iris bulbs return-- the dozens her mother entrusted to her, packed in a valise from abroad as an immigrant.
The story of my perennials, my farm, my place, is a part of a long legacy where my roots have been allowed to spread wide and deep and long. My love of nature and gardening is persistent, and when I look back, I realize my love of being rooted informs me of who I am.
This is a beautiful illustration of home and place, Ryder. It reminds me of Ruth Ozeki's All Over Creation, and also of the healing effects of gardening several people I know have described during the pandemic. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you so much, Eleanor. I can think of no higher compliment than being mentioned in the same sentence as Ruth Ozeki!
My home hasn’t been found among the humans who I share DNA and those who you raised me. My home has never been made out of wood and glass from any childhood homes I’ve lived in. My home isn’t in any fleeting memories or experienced Ive been a part of, whether pleasant or not. My home isn’t even found being around nature that I have always admired and adored. Instead, I prefer to define my home as coming back to the higher source deep within myself. The constant and always, my place of comfort. Connected to a world beyond that is revealed in due time. My Protector, the originator who formed not only my limbs, but already knew most everything about me. While I am one who craves change and newness, this heartfelt space within has been, is and will forever be regardless of where I am in space and time. My home is mysterious, an enigma. My home is full of so much love it moves me without me having to move anywhere.
Love that last line, Jennifer.
I spent my early 20s wandering the globe within parameters that felt safe. I always had a purpose, often a job. I craved seeing and knowing as many different kinds of human and natural spaces and ways of being as could possibly exist. I also knew from some college travel experience that I would be able to see, hear, feel and think about it all best if I had some externally-recognized reason for being in these new places at all. Gradually, I shifted my work and appetites to my home country, recognizing that for all the things I was learning about other places and people I was losing ground in my own. And while I feel a void from the lack of international travel and living in my life today, I have never regretted the choice.
The vastness of America and its people means that it has so many spaces and ways of being to explore, and so many life paths to offer. It cannot offer me a British life, or a European life, or a West African life. But living here gives me a common foundation with others that I can probe with confidence. Learning to be an American can last a lifetime. There are so many answers to one single question.
Traveling and living as widely as I have, I know in my bones that no one place can be everything to me, and that I will always be most alive, and most content, when I can enjoy mobility and variety from a rooted foundation. If I could never leave my home country again I would mourn that loss deeply. But I would not be without new horizons to feed my appetite.
This is exactly what my parents did after many years of travel around the world by foot--hiking, trekking.In their later years, Eleanor. They decided on the American West as their next adventure, and fell in love with it. There is so much to see and experience in this world, sometimes one only has to pass to of their own boundaries to explore the bounty.
So true, Ryder. It's fascinating to me to think of the differences between what a local sees in a place like Lander, WY, or Venice, Italy, and what a tourist sees. There are so many wonderful layers everywhere. Knowing, and feeling able to continually open, our own presets and expectations to a new place, can turn one planet into infinite worlds.