Wednesday, December 9, 2009
8:30am
It rained last night. A lot. I was expecting to wake up to an icy layer that coated everything. But it seems the temperature has risen, just slightly. It’s still cold. I bundled up in my husband’s jacket, knowing that if my core is at least warm, my fingers and nose will survive. It is just after morning rush hour. The steady stream of cars down Washington Blvd and Penn Ave. are slowly starting to die down. I look up to see the clouds moving quickly. They part where their gases are thin, revealing the piercing morning sun in intermittent streams.
Although it is a weekday morning, and I hear life all around me, man-made life that is: cars, buses, construction and footsteps, there is a pleasant but strong movement coming from my natural surroundings. My honey locust is completely bare now, swaying with a momentum that starts at the tip of its branches and disappears somewhere closer to its trunk. The black spruce is still full of needles, but its tiny cones have dwindled down to short skinny pods that hang along the upper ledge of branches. They look cold, as though they are hiding inside the tree’s full bushy arms, like me in my big jacket.
I try to envision what this place looked like when I first started writing this blog. Green was everywhere, highlighted by the summer light. I couldn’t see the sky and backdrop. I couldn’t see the rooftops beyond the telephone wires. I couldn’t see people inside their windows getting ready to start the day. It makes me think of how cleansing winter can feel, as though all the “fluffy” stuff (the bushes, leaves, flowers and tall grass) has been swept clean by cold winds and frost. It’s a time when we go indoors to spend our time. We live in close corridors with our loved ones, we smell the inside air, we cuddle up next to our pets and our lights, hoping to seek a similar warmth we feel outside in summer and spring.
I realize I love winter for that very reason. It is a forcing “in” of people and things. And, in a good way. My husband and I have been spending less and less time together, because he has been extremely busy between his job and outside consulting work. I long for the cold nights when he does come home, because there is no where for us to go but right next to each other. Although we love to venture out from time to time when the snow is so thick all you see it white, for now I am happy sitting on the couch by the shine of Christmas lights. It makes me think that it is not just holidays that bring out the “closeness” in people, or the feelings of gratefulness and thanks. It is nature itself: a winter season with more intent than imagined. With the intent to encourage our busy lives and frantic schedules to slow down, curl up and get warm, right next to the people we love most.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Final Reflection to Nature Writing Course
Coming into this course, I was eager to delve into the world of nature writing. For me, it was even more appealing because I have spent the past year of my time here at Chatham focusing my own writing on the natural world and environment. As a result of this course not only am I more interested in nature writing, but I also have discovered a much deeper and more meaningful level of writing. I now see nature writing as a place to reveal the most innate behaviors of the human condition, to revel in intimate interactions with the natural world, and to spread a degree of understanding and appreciation of the world around us so that we may tread more lightly upon it.
Although it was complicated and we often found ourselves back where we started, I will never forget our first class discussion concerning “What is Nature?” To me, that was one of our most engaging, interactive and passionate discussions. I enjoyed listening to all the different view points and found myself changing my own perspectives throughout the discussion. The question is a vague and difficult one, but I think it put us on the right track: it founded a place for our minds to build from when we read, analyzed and wrote our own nature pieces.
Class discussion was one of my favorite elements of this course, however I thoroughly enjoyed our field trips, guest speakers, and blog entries. As someone who admires activism, and plans on getting out in the field and doing volunteer work (which I never find the time to do) I was grateful that this class got me out there. The farm was fun, educational and it felt good to be out in the cold with my classmates. It reminded me of how lucky I am to be able to attend a school like Chatham and be involved in everything it offers. And although it was a “rough” morning for many, as well as a rainy one, I was happy and proud to be at the Nine Mile Run Watershed cleaning up crap and planting more trees. I think as citizens we should all be doing that regularly(there should be some sort of tax incentive for work like that-not that I care about the money, but I think it would get more people out there.) Another highlight for me was the guest speakers. Although very different people and writers, Nancy Gift and Jimmy Santiago Baca opened my eyes up to yet another level. Nancy taught me that it’s okay to just write down stories, to go back and make them environmentally educational, and to love weeds! Jimmy shook my mind and encouraged me to write with a level of emotion that I often stifle. His words and wisdom reminded me of the power of language, and the advantage we, as writers, have by using it.
I have to say that I now hold a special place in my (nature) heart for Mary Oliver, Janisse Ray, Edward Abbey, and Gretel Ehrlich. Although not a poet, Oliver’s writing reminded me of the power of simplicity and color. Ray showed me the skill of weaving the environmental with the personal, and Abbey and Ehrlich made me want to travel to the West in order to see the land as beautifully as they describe it, believing that I, too, could discover such serenity.
I find myself often getting caught up in description when it comes to my nature writing. I like how this course has taught me to utilize scene, dialogue and meaningful reflection to speak to somewhere much further beyond my own mind. I wish I could have taken this class earlier in my time here at Chatham. I feel it has taught me to take my writing to the next level when it comes to merging literature with nature. The blogging has heightened my awareness of my intimate surroundings. Although I sometimes had a hard time seeing my spot with “fresh” eyes, I like how it forced me to observe. As a result, I discovered what was hiding underneath the surface. I now have a deeper relationship with the things I describe, and I hope to incorporate that “light” into all my writing.
Although it was complicated and we often found ourselves back where we started, I will never forget our first class discussion concerning “What is Nature?” To me, that was one of our most engaging, interactive and passionate discussions. I enjoyed listening to all the different view points and found myself changing my own perspectives throughout the discussion. The question is a vague and difficult one, but I think it put us on the right track: it founded a place for our minds to build from when we read, analyzed and wrote our own nature pieces.
Class discussion was one of my favorite elements of this course, however I thoroughly enjoyed our field trips, guest speakers, and blog entries. As someone who admires activism, and plans on getting out in the field and doing volunteer work (which I never find the time to do) I was grateful that this class got me out there. The farm was fun, educational and it felt good to be out in the cold with my classmates. It reminded me of how lucky I am to be able to attend a school like Chatham and be involved in everything it offers. And although it was a “rough” morning for many, as well as a rainy one, I was happy and proud to be at the Nine Mile Run Watershed cleaning up crap and planting more trees. I think as citizens we should all be doing that regularly(there should be some sort of tax incentive for work like that-not that I care about the money, but I think it would get more people out there.) Another highlight for me was the guest speakers. Although very different people and writers, Nancy Gift and Jimmy Santiago Baca opened my eyes up to yet another level. Nancy taught me that it’s okay to just write down stories, to go back and make them environmentally educational, and to love weeds! Jimmy shook my mind and encouraged me to write with a level of emotion that I often stifle. His words and wisdom reminded me of the power of language, and the advantage we, as writers, have by using it.
I have to say that I now hold a special place in my (nature) heart for Mary Oliver, Janisse Ray, Edward Abbey, and Gretel Ehrlich. Although not a poet, Oliver’s writing reminded me of the power of simplicity and color. Ray showed me the skill of weaving the environmental with the personal, and Abbey and Ehrlich made me want to travel to the West in order to see the land as beautifully as they describe it, believing that I, too, could discover such serenity.
I find myself often getting caught up in description when it comes to my nature writing. I like how this course has taught me to utilize scene, dialogue and meaningful reflection to speak to somewhere much further beyond my own mind. I wish I could have taken this class earlier in my time here at Chatham. I feel it has taught me to take my writing to the next level when it comes to merging literature with nature. The blogging has heightened my awareness of my intimate surroundings. Although I sometimes had a hard time seeing my spot with “fresh” eyes, I like how it forced me to observe. As a result, I discovered what was hiding underneath the surface. I now have a deeper relationship with the things I describe, and I hope to incorporate that “light” into all my writing.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Response to Jimmy Santiago Baca
Jimmy Santiago Baca moves me, as a writer, a poet, and a person. I realized this the moment I started reading his memoir, “A Place to Stand: The Making of a Poet.” I know that a lot of what drives his prose is the events in his life themselves, which fuel his writing with extreme experiences and emotions, but I do think it is more than that. It feels like his language and his words are treated like presents on Christmas day, formed with the utmost amount of energy and excitement possible. He learned to read and write in his 20’s, and I think that played a huge role in the writer he is today. It’s as though every time he sits down to write a word, he magnifies each one with the delight you feel when learning your first word. He is blessed with a fresh perspective of language, a language that saved him while he was in jail, a language that “ordinary” people take for granted.
Baca’s powerful story is told through strong, crisp sentences. Each word feels painstakingly chosen in order to achieve the strongest, most efficient effect. I admire how his voice is relayed almost simultaneously through the child Baca and the adult Baca, especially when he visits his father in prison as a 5-yr.old: “I wanted to tell her not to leave Father in there. I feared he might be hurt or be swallowed up by the darkness, and we would never see him again. The green painted bars, the guards with guns and keys and surly attitudes, the caked grime on the walls and floor, the unshaven men with no teeth and swollen red eyes and scratched faces—these filled me with terror (2).” He takes the details that only an adult would recognize and conveys them through a child’s image. I believe he is very successful at this.
Baca also succeeds in writing through a genuine voice. His life was extremely difficult and instead of harping on the awful experiences themselves, he takes a deep hard look into the mind of this growing child. At times, I wanted to grab the little boy in the pages and rescue him from his life, bring him home and hold him in my arms. I felt his anguish and fear and misfortune, without his words asking for sympathy.
As I read more, delving further into Baca’s life, I was interested to see his language and metaphors becoming more complex and deep, and beautiful. It is as though he takes us on the journey of learning language, of taking it to higher and deeper realms(making his book yet another metaphor for learning language.) I was swept away to a tiny irrelevant place outside Baca’s jail cell, taken further into his brain while focusing on something as tiny as a blade of grass: “I gazed out my window at the swatch of oily grass hugging the base of a telephone pole. I wondered how the grass survived, wondered what it felt when the sun entered its pores and fed it the glowing food that made it grow…I closed my eyes and, for hours, focused strictly on the grass at the utility pole base, and I felt my soul grafting with the grass blades (238).”
Baca claims he is a poet, even though his prose is wonderful. But after reading his poetry, I see why he considers himself a poet. Reading Baca’s poems made me want to write poetry. I don’t write much poetry, mainly because I don’t feel as comfortable in that form and because I fear that I will not succeed in the way I do with prose. But, Baca encourages me to take the most important, meaningful and powerful words in a sentence and make them erupt from the page, into a poem. His verb choices are vivid and active, fueled with life and charge--in “El Sapo” he writes
Their souls cracked in attics,
in picture frames,
in family trunks. These
people afraid of his humanity,
hummed with warm-motor hearts,
blood pulsed colored blinking lights,
whose days were constant tapes and ribbons
of information
A man like Sapo,
short-circuited their heaven,
his root-charged blood darkened their ivory nails and cracked
their glass flowers (92).
His poetry is infused with metaphor and simile, comparisons that bring together the smallest details of life with the largest ideas that marinate in the mind: “Conversations in her kitchen / about my mother I overheard as a boy / made me sniff around the screen door to hear more / like a coyote smells a cave he had been born in once(15).” He fills his poems with a balance of metaphor, dialogue, detail and reflection. In this way, it is a though each poem tells a story about life, or death or some place in between where his dreams are constantly waiting, often behind cell bars.
Baca’s powerful story is told through strong, crisp sentences. Each word feels painstakingly chosen in order to achieve the strongest, most efficient effect. I admire how his voice is relayed almost simultaneously through the child Baca and the adult Baca, especially when he visits his father in prison as a 5-yr.old: “I wanted to tell her not to leave Father in there. I feared he might be hurt or be swallowed up by the darkness, and we would never see him again. The green painted bars, the guards with guns and keys and surly attitudes, the caked grime on the walls and floor, the unshaven men with no teeth and swollen red eyes and scratched faces—these filled me with terror (2).” He takes the details that only an adult would recognize and conveys them through a child’s image. I believe he is very successful at this.
Baca also succeeds in writing through a genuine voice. His life was extremely difficult and instead of harping on the awful experiences themselves, he takes a deep hard look into the mind of this growing child. At times, I wanted to grab the little boy in the pages and rescue him from his life, bring him home and hold him in my arms. I felt his anguish and fear and misfortune, without his words asking for sympathy.
As I read more, delving further into Baca’s life, I was interested to see his language and metaphors becoming more complex and deep, and beautiful. It is as though he takes us on the journey of learning language, of taking it to higher and deeper realms(making his book yet another metaphor for learning language.) I was swept away to a tiny irrelevant place outside Baca’s jail cell, taken further into his brain while focusing on something as tiny as a blade of grass: “I gazed out my window at the swatch of oily grass hugging the base of a telephone pole. I wondered how the grass survived, wondered what it felt when the sun entered its pores and fed it the glowing food that made it grow…I closed my eyes and, for hours, focused strictly on the grass at the utility pole base, and I felt my soul grafting with the grass blades (238).”
Baca claims he is a poet, even though his prose is wonderful. But after reading his poetry, I see why he considers himself a poet. Reading Baca’s poems made me want to write poetry. I don’t write much poetry, mainly because I don’t feel as comfortable in that form and because I fear that I will not succeed in the way I do with prose. But, Baca encourages me to take the most important, meaningful and powerful words in a sentence and make them erupt from the page, into a poem. His verb choices are vivid and active, fueled with life and charge--in “El Sapo” he writes
Their souls cracked in attics,
in picture frames,
in family trunks. These
people afraid of his humanity,
hummed with warm-motor hearts,
blood pulsed colored blinking lights,
whose days were constant tapes and ribbons
of information
A man like Sapo,
short-circuited their heaven,
his root-charged blood darkened their ivory nails and cracked
their glass flowers (92).
His poetry is infused with metaphor and simile, comparisons that bring together the smallest details of life with the largest ideas that marinate in the mind: “Conversations in her kitchen / about my mother I overheard as a boy / made me sniff around the screen door to hear more / like a coyote smells a cave he had been born in once(15).” He fills his poems with a balance of metaphor, dialogue, detail and reflection. In this way, it is a though each poem tells a story about life, or death or some place in between where his dreams are constantly waiting, often behind cell bars.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Nature Blog #10: City Creatures
Saturday, November 14, 2009
12:30pm
I came out onto my balcony to get warm. It’s mid-November, but I find myself warmer outside than in my apartment. The sun glares at the empty trees, coating their bare branches and twigs in a weekend glow. Below the ground is a carpet of dead leaves. I can hear every step and move of two squirrels, scurrying and scampering about beneath the flora. It sounds like deer trekking through the woods, but it is just squirrels in a clump of city trees.
A cool air still blows against my cheek, chilling the right side of my face while the sun warms my left. Opposite sensations against the same skin, like dipping cold toes in a warm bath. The birds are loud today. They woke me up early this morning, disorienting my body into thinking it was spring. A blue jay lands on the branch of my honey locust. I can see the black streak under his eye, darting as fast as his eye does at movement. He doesn’t stay there long. A noise, the flick of a branch, and he is off to a new destination.
A motorcycle chugs on Penn Ave. Its throttle blends in with an airplane high above. The sound of metal banging against a rusty barrel echoes through the open trees. All sounds cave in around me, speaking monosyllabic sounds of city language, busy words. Sitting out here on my balcony, so in touch with the trees and leaves and birds that surround me, I feel teased by their natural serenity. I want to go away from all the other distracting noise, away from my railing shadows and the telephone wire that hangs to my right. I’ve been writing like this is my past few blogs, wanting to escape to a quiet wooden den. I realize that I need that regularly. I need the chance to hear nothing but birds calling in the sunlight, trees rustling ever so gently in the afternoon’s breeze, creatures wrestling in the forest floor’s leaves. When I sit and observe the natural world that surrounds me, I slow down enough to want more. I remember the calming effect it has on my mind, the lackadaisical and meditative encouragement.
It’s like finding another world within a world, one that is at time the complete opposite of schedules and clocks, cars and the evening news. It is always there, though. Whether hiding behind a dark cloudy day, or coming out full force like today in the sun.
A family of birds, I cannot see them, sits in the top of my pine. The pine has lost all of its leaves except for at the very top; it looks like a small Christmas tree hanging in the clear blue sky. It sounds like there are hundreds of them up there, chitchatting like women at a coffee shop. One flies out and one flies in, hiding their bodies completely from me. All I can tell of their movement is from the shake and shuffles of the pine needles’ edges. It seems as though they are quite aware of this abnormally warm November day. They are fine just chirping in the branches, having found a place to hide from the city ruckus. I’m encouraged to follow their lead.
12:30pm
I came out onto my balcony to get warm. It’s mid-November, but I find myself warmer outside than in my apartment. The sun glares at the empty trees, coating their bare branches and twigs in a weekend glow. Below the ground is a carpet of dead leaves. I can hear every step and move of two squirrels, scurrying and scampering about beneath the flora. It sounds like deer trekking through the woods, but it is just squirrels in a clump of city trees.
A cool air still blows against my cheek, chilling the right side of my face while the sun warms my left. Opposite sensations against the same skin, like dipping cold toes in a warm bath. The birds are loud today. They woke me up early this morning, disorienting my body into thinking it was spring. A blue jay lands on the branch of my honey locust. I can see the black streak under his eye, darting as fast as his eye does at movement. He doesn’t stay there long. A noise, the flick of a branch, and he is off to a new destination.
A motorcycle chugs on Penn Ave. Its throttle blends in with an airplane high above. The sound of metal banging against a rusty barrel echoes through the open trees. All sounds cave in around me, speaking monosyllabic sounds of city language, busy words. Sitting out here on my balcony, so in touch with the trees and leaves and birds that surround me, I feel teased by their natural serenity. I want to go away from all the other distracting noise, away from my railing shadows and the telephone wire that hangs to my right. I’ve been writing like this is my past few blogs, wanting to escape to a quiet wooden den. I realize that I need that regularly. I need the chance to hear nothing but birds calling in the sunlight, trees rustling ever so gently in the afternoon’s breeze, creatures wrestling in the forest floor’s leaves. When I sit and observe the natural world that surrounds me, I slow down enough to want more. I remember the calming effect it has on my mind, the lackadaisical and meditative encouragement.
It’s like finding another world within a world, one that is at time the complete opposite of schedules and clocks, cars and the evening news. It is always there, though. Whether hiding behind a dark cloudy day, or coming out full force like today in the sun.
A family of birds, I cannot see them, sits in the top of my pine. The pine has lost all of its leaves except for at the very top; it looks like a small Christmas tree hanging in the clear blue sky. It sounds like there are hundreds of them up there, chitchatting like women at a coffee shop. One flies out and one flies in, hiding their bodies completely from me. All I can tell of their movement is from the shake and shuffles of the pine needles’ edges. It seems as though they are quite aware of this abnormally warm November day. They are fine just chirping in the branches, having found a place to hide from the city ruckus. I’m encouraged to follow their lead.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
PA Natural Gas Drilling: Yay or Nay?
Last week, I was listening to NPR while driving home from school, and caught the end of an interview. This interview was with an agricultural specialist and he was discussing, at the time I listened in, the natural gas drilling. As someone who likes to be educated about things that are being done to improve our current environmental situation, my ears perked up.
Later I asked my husband about the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. As a sustainability professional, he was able to break down for me the seemingly wonderful alternative of drilling natural gas, thus lessening our dependence on oil.
Although this does not pertain solely to Pittsburgh, the right to drill natural gas in the Marcellus Shale was just passed by Governor Randall, and applies to all of Pennsylvania. In order to balance the PA monthly budget, Governor Randall agreed to Marcellus Shale drilling in PA. At first glance, he had good reason to. On a positive note, natural gas produces much less CO2 than other forms of energy per amount of energy produced, not to mention, like I said, it balanced our budget.
But, what is it about this natural gas drilling that has educated and specialized professionals such as my husband worried? Why do they think this is a disaster in the making?
The Marcellus Shale is “a Middle Devonian-age black, low density, carbonaceous (organic rich) shale that occurs in the subsurface beneath much of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York.” In as recent as 2008 it was estimated that the Marcellus Shale contained over 500 million cubic feet of natural gas. This amount of energy could potentially provide for the entire U.S. for two years, and be worth close to a trillion dollars.
We’ve struck gold!
Taken at face value, it seems this process is too good to be true. In reality, it is just that. In order to extract this natural gas from the shale that sits 1 mile below the ground, “fracking” chemicals are added to millions of gallons of water that is pumped at high pressures, deep into the rock, in order to push out the natural gas. The problems with this process of extraction are many fold. Firstly, current law regulations do not require that the drilling companies report the “fracking” chemicals being used, so no one knows what is going into our groundwater. The millions of gallons of water that are used become contaminated and unusable. Where is all this water going to go? And, how is it going to be treated if its contaminants are unknown? Second, in order to get to the gas, they have to drill extremely deep. In doing so, the water is exposed to radioactive material. Third, by drilling, they are going to mess up the groundwater and aquifer systems and contaminate or dry up streams, creeks, and wells.
With this knowledge at hand, it is quite possible that the environmental cost of this drilling will by far outweigh the economic and carbon-saving benefits that are anticipated.
We currently fight wars for oil. Next it will be wars for water. (And, they already have begun.) We might want to think twice about ruining something that is going to be worth its weight in gold in our near future.
*I feel like the “bones” for an environmental argument may be here. But just in the little time it took me to do some research, talk to my husband and format this blog, I realize how complicated writing about environmental issues can be. In order to write a successful argument, I feel a lot of research needs to be done. There are constant battling forces between every argument and to complete a successful essay, both sides should, at least, be recognized. I also notice that as soon as I start conveying facts or arguments, I lose a lyricism or language to my writing. I think it will take time and practice to merge the two together; a patience I intend to welcome as I spread my writing wings.*
Later I asked my husband about the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. As a sustainability professional, he was able to break down for me the seemingly wonderful alternative of drilling natural gas, thus lessening our dependence on oil.
Although this does not pertain solely to Pittsburgh, the right to drill natural gas in the Marcellus Shale was just passed by Governor Randall, and applies to all of Pennsylvania. In order to balance the PA monthly budget, Governor Randall agreed to Marcellus Shale drilling in PA. At first glance, he had good reason to. On a positive note, natural gas produces much less CO2 than other forms of energy per amount of energy produced, not to mention, like I said, it balanced our budget.
But, what is it about this natural gas drilling that has educated and specialized professionals such as my husband worried? Why do they think this is a disaster in the making?
The Marcellus Shale is “a Middle Devonian-age black, low density, carbonaceous (organic rich) shale that occurs in the subsurface beneath much of Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York.” In as recent as 2008 it was estimated that the Marcellus Shale contained over 500 million cubic feet of natural gas. This amount of energy could potentially provide for the entire U.S. for two years, and be worth close to a trillion dollars.
We’ve struck gold!
Taken at face value, it seems this process is too good to be true. In reality, it is just that. In order to extract this natural gas from the shale that sits 1 mile below the ground, “fracking” chemicals are added to millions of gallons of water that is pumped at high pressures, deep into the rock, in order to push out the natural gas. The problems with this process of extraction are many fold. Firstly, current law regulations do not require that the drilling companies report the “fracking” chemicals being used, so no one knows what is going into our groundwater. The millions of gallons of water that are used become contaminated and unusable. Where is all this water going to go? And, how is it going to be treated if its contaminants are unknown? Second, in order to get to the gas, they have to drill extremely deep. In doing so, the water is exposed to radioactive material. Third, by drilling, they are going to mess up the groundwater and aquifer systems and contaminate or dry up streams, creeks, and wells.
With this knowledge at hand, it is quite possible that the environmental cost of this drilling will by far outweigh the economic and carbon-saving benefits that are anticipated.
We currently fight wars for oil. Next it will be wars for water. (And, they already have begun.) We might want to think twice about ruining something that is going to be worth its weight in gold in our near future.
*I feel like the “bones” for an environmental argument may be here. But just in the little time it took me to do some research, talk to my husband and format this blog, I realize how complicated writing about environmental issues can be. In order to write a successful argument, I feel a lot of research needs to be done. There are constant battling forces between every argument and to complete a successful essay, both sides should, at least, be recognized. I also notice that as soon as I start conveying facts or arguments, I lose a lyricism or language to my writing. I think it will take time and practice to merge the two together; a patience I intend to welcome as I spread my writing wings.*
Nature Blog #9: Turning Gray
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
2:30pm
Today is gray. Gray skies, gray light, gray air. It feels like the end of something. I hear a dishwasher, cars, and a bus station's mechanical rings in the distant. They accompany the gray perfectly. The leaves of my honey locust are now dried amber flakes on the ground. One of its branches has snapped; I can see that now with the leaves all gone. I wonder how it snapped. It seems recent, but I can’t remember any storms. Broken in two places, it’s holding on by mere splinters.
I feel vulnerable sitting up here on my balcony, no longer shielded by the lush foliage that once filled my locusts, oak, and pine. The brightness that used to surround me is now dimmed and layers the ground below, a soft orange still catching my eye. Instead, today, I am surrounded by work. Reading, writing, commenting, creating…I wish they would comfort me like these trees once did. Instead I am opening a little more to the world. Letting my words reveal parts of my life, parts holding tightly inside like the breaking branch to its roots. It is overwhelming to reach such places in writing; it feels like I’ve just spent the last 24 hours in therapy. Questioning my internal thoughts, analyzing my answers, searching, seeking, standing strong. I am tired.
The last of the dying leaves shimmy down through the branches. I can hear them rustle to the ground. I think they are squirrels at first. Look to my right. They are just leaves. Delicate enough to crumple in a fist, light enough to be taken by the wind.
I used to think trees were ugly when they lost all their leaves. But as I’ve gotten older I appreciate the bareness they reveal. I like to look deep into their cracks and crevices, pointing out lines that turn so beautifully, it’s hard to imagine they're natural. Without flames of disguising leaves covering up these trunks, I see the tree for what it truly is, its real form, its insides, its core.
It could be any time of day. The sun is not out to shine its biological clock. The volume of cars and the lack of filled parking spaces is the only thing that tells me the hour, without looking at my watch. If I were out in the middle of the woods, I don’t think I’d care the time. I’d wait for the darkness to roll in, search for the last gray light, and follow the bare trees home.
2:30pm
Today is gray. Gray skies, gray light, gray air. It feels like the end of something. I hear a dishwasher, cars, and a bus station's mechanical rings in the distant. They accompany the gray perfectly. The leaves of my honey locust are now dried amber flakes on the ground. One of its branches has snapped; I can see that now with the leaves all gone. I wonder how it snapped. It seems recent, but I can’t remember any storms. Broken in two places, it’s holding on by mere splinters.
I feel vulnerable sitting up here on my balcony, no longer shielded by the lush foliage that once filled my locusts, oak, and pine. The brightness that used to surround me is now dimmed and layers the ground below, a soft orange still catching my eye. Instead, today, I am surrounded by work. Reading, writing, commenting, creating…I wish they would comfort me like these trees once did. Instead I am opening a little more to the world. Letting my words reveal parts of my life, parts holding tightly inside like the breaking branch to its roots. It is overwhelming to reach such places in writing; it feels like I’ve just spent the last 24 hours in therapy. Questioning my internal thoughts, analyzing my answers, searching, seeking, standing strong. I am tired.
The last of the dying leaves shimmy down through the branches. I can hear them rustle to the ground. I think they are squirrels at first. Look to my right. They are just leaves. Delicate enough to crumple in a fist, light enough to be taken by the wind.
I used to think trees were ugly when they lost all their leaves. But as I’ve gotten older I appreciate the bareness they reveal. I like to look deep into their cracks and crevices, pointing out lines that turn so beautifully, it’s hard to imagine they're natural. Without flames of disguising leaves covering up these trunks, I see the tree for what it truly is, its real form, its insides, its core.
It could be any time of day. The sun is not out to shine its biological clock. The volume of cars and the lack of filled parking spaces is the only thing that tells me the hour, without looking at my watch. If I were out in the middle of the woods, I don’t think I’d care the time. I’d wait for the darkness to roll in, search for the last gray light, and follow the bare trees home.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Ehrlich's A Solace of Open Spaces
Ehrlich’s “The Solace of Open Spaces” has opened my eyes (and mind) to a western world. It is a world I want to visit, a landscape I want to walk. Most of all, as a writer, this book has shown me how to take a place and make it more powerful than imagined by connecting it to humankind.
The first essay “The Solace of Open Spaces,” which is also the title of the book, was one of my favorites. I think this is because it is full of material. Themes of space, solitude and longing are introduced, and reflect the book as a whole. For me, the first essay was representative of the entire book. It provided insight and reflection, as well as facts and beautiful language. Ehrlich is a lyric and poetic writer. Each essay focuses on a different aspect of her experience living in Wyoming, yet she always dig deeper for an internal experience. I admire her ability to connect the land with the people and culture. And even more so, I hope that one day I can reveal an internal and external landscape as well as she does.
After heading out to Wyoming to shoot a film on ranchers, Ehrlich ends up staying there for 17 years. Her connection with the land is strong. And even though she was not born there, it is as though the rivers and roads of this state run as deep as her own veins. In the essay “The Solace of Open Spaces” she connects the harsh, dry, open land with the pride of its inhabitants: “People here still feel pride because they live in such a harsh place, part of the glamorous cowboy past, and they are determined not to be the victims of a mining-dominated future(3).” I find it interesting that Ehrlich describes this link with the “cowboy,” the rugged western expansionist. It just proves that she observes the landscape and its dwellers very intently, enough to try and analyze their personalities.
I find Ehrlich is very deep in that way, even though she often uses simple language. The land becomes a place for her to start fresh after the death of a loved one: “…life on the sheep ranch woke me up…I threw away my clothes; I cut my hair. The arid country was a clean slate. Its absolute indifference steadied me (4).” She even draws connections between the land and the language. The solitary lifestyle of westerners induces a quietness in them. She believes they have their own language, “shortened to the skin and bones of a thought,” compressed and dry just like the land. She even compares the clayey soil of the land in Wyoming to the “fillers” of American life. Her comments on materialism are strengthened by her ability to evoke the land. She can talk about something tangible, something beautiful and find a way to relate it to the human condition.
One of my other favorite essays was “Other Lives.” For me, this was her meditation on death. This chapter is full of examples where she examines the idea of inner vs. outer nature. In describing the frost on the ground, iron ore, the Wyoming sky and animal carcasses, she reveals her pain. The grief she feels while losing a lover is woven into the landscape, rooted in the earth as though it was meant to be.
She is very successful at using characters to reveal the culture of Wyoming. In her essay “Obituary” Ehrlich introduces character after character that she meets along the way. Each one is a unique individual, always with something interesting to say. Her point about language is confirmed in this chapter: their short concise sentences reveal themselves as well as the land and culture. Cliff says “Gretel, when you’re looking at me you’re looking at country (20).” In most of her other essays, the landscapes becomes the characters, and the wind and weather its words.
Although I loved the entire book, and think it should be read by all nature writers (and writers in general), I am excited to focus on the first essay in class. This essay showcases all of Ehrlich’s talents and in a few short pages introduces its readers to an unknown world that somehow seems familiar. It is because she connects emotion, pain, longing, and love to a landscape. Emotions all humans feel, ones we can all understand. In turn she connects us to this place, this beautiful massive space she calls home.
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I have a hard time finding connections between the landscape of my hometown and its culture. I grew up in Carlisle, a small provincial town in central PA. Although surrounded by countryside and farmland, it is a quaint town that survives because of a liberal arts college and an Army War College, or military base. For me this town was a mixture of different people. There was the liberal academics that populated the college community, the conservative country dwellers that ran dairy farms and attended the annual car shows, and the temporary military families that came and went every year. As the daughter of a professor who worked at the college, the culture ingrained in me came from books and dinner discussions and travel. Most of my friends were born and raised Carlislians with parents who went to Carlisle High School. The town is enclosed by North and South Mountain, boundaries that mark this small historic place. As a child and teenager I spent my weekends hiking the woods of these mountains or staying out past curfew in parking lots of gas stations. I guess you could say as a result I sometimes feel torn, by the stimulation of city (or town) life and the serenity of mountains and countryside. North and South Mountain always made me feel stuck, like I could not get away from this town. Maybe that is why I traveled and lived overseas as I grew older, maybe that is why I live in a city now. But when I lay my head down at night, I find myself wanting to be back in those mountains of Carlisle, deep in its familiar woods.
The first essay “The Solace of Open Spaces,” which is also the title of the book, was one of my favorites. I think this is because it is full of material. Themes of space, solitude and longing are introduced, and reflect the book as a whole. For me, the first essay was representative of the entire book. It provided insight and reflection, as well as facts and beautiful language. Ehrlich is a lyric and poetic writer. Each essay focuses on a different aspect of her experience living in Wyoming, yet she always dig deeper for an internal experience. I admire her ability to connect the land with the people and culture. And even more so, I hope that one day I can reveal an internal and external landscape as well as she does.
After heading out to Wyoming to shoot a film on ranchers, Ehrlich ends up staying there for 17 years. Her connection with the land is strong. And even though she was not born there, it is as though the rivers and roads of this state run as deep as her own veins. In the essay “The Solace of Open Spaces” she connects the harsh, dry, open land with the pride of its inhabitants: “People here still feel pride because they live in such a harsh place, part of the glamorous cowboy past, and they are determined not to be the victims of a mining-dominated future(3).” I find it interesting that Ehrlich describes this link with the “cowboy,” the rugged western expansionist. It just proves that she observes the landscape and its dwellers very intently, enough to try and analyze their personalities.
I find Ehrlich is very deep in that way, even though she often uses simple language. The land becomes a place for her to start fresh after the death of a loved one: “…life on the sheep ranch woke me up…I threw away my clothes; I cut my hair. The arid country was a clean slate. Its absolute indifference steadied me (4).” She even draws connections between the land and the language. The solitary lifestyle of westerners induces a quietness in them. She believes they have their own language, “shortened to the skin and bones of a thought,” compressed and dry just like the land. She even compares the clayey soil of the land in Wyoming to the “fillers” of American life. Her comments on materialism are strengthened by her ability to evoke the land. She can talk about something tangible, something beautiful and find a way to relate it to the human condition.
One of my other favorite essays was “Other Lives.” For me, this was her meditation on death. This chapter is full of examples where she examines the idea of inner vs. outer nature. In describing the frost on the ground, iron ore, the Wyoming sky and animal carcasses, she reveals her pain. The grief she feels while losing a lover is woven into the landscape, rooted in the earth as though it was meant to be.
She is very successful at using characters to reveal the culture of Wyoming. In her essay “Obituary” Ehrlich introduces character after character that she meets along the way. Each one is a unique individual, always with something interesting to say. Her point about language is confirmed in this chapter: their short concise sentences reveal themselves as well as the land and culture. Cliff says “Gretel, when you’re looking at me you’re looking at country (20).” In most of her other essays, the landscapes becomes the characters, and the wind and weather its words.
Although I loved the entire book, and think it should be read by all nature writers (and writers in general), I am excited to focus on the first essay in class. This essay showcases all of Ehrlich’s talents and in a few short pages introduces its readers to an unknown world that somehow seems familiar. It is because she connects emotion, pain, longing, and love to a landscape. Emotions all humans feel, ones we can all understand. In turn she connects us to this place, this beautiful massive space she calls home.
-
I have a hard time finding connections between the landscape of my hometown and its culture. I grew up in Carlisle, a small provincial town in central PA. Although surrounded by countryside and farmland, it is a quaint town that survives because of a liberal arts college and an Army War College, or military base. For me this town was a mixture of different people. There was the liberal academics that populated the college community, the conservative country dwellers that ran dairy farms and attended the annual car shows, and the temporary military families that came and went every year. As the daughter of a professor who worked at the college, the culture ingrained in me came from books and dinner discussions and travel. Most of my friends were born and raised Carlislians with parents who went to Carlisle High School. The town is enclosed by North and South Mountain, boundaries that mark this small historic place. As a child and teenager I spent my weekends hiking the woods of these mountains or staying out past curfew in parking lots of gas stations. I guess you could say as a result I sometimes feel torn, by the stimulation of city (or town) life and the serenity of mountains and countryside. North and South Mountain always made me feel stuck, like I could not get away from this town. Maybe that is why I traveled and lived overseas as I grew older, maybe that is why I live in a city now. But when I lay my head down at night, I find myself wanting to be back in those mountains of Carlisle, deep in its familiar woods.
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