The Nature of Belonging
Communing with the Landscapes of Home
When I close my eyes, the landscapes of the area where I grew up form the most tangible memories of any place I have ever visited. Long after the names and details associated with the people I knew, the street names, the social networks, have waned, my memories of northern California are contoured as hills and oak trees and dry summer grasses and limitless skies and fog. Sensory experiences of this world, firmly engrained in my mind and upon every tactile surface of my body, make other memories of home feel distant. Some ascribe the pangs of homesickness to a person, to the thought of a favorite food item, a place, to glimpsing something that evokes an analog somewhere else. For me it is always fog, even on the rare morning in Providence, that transports me several thousand miles and perhaps even back in time to a version of nature that I hold sacrosanct.
Sitting atop the highest peak on Angel Island, watching mesmerized as a thick blanket of fog envelops the San Francisco bay with extraordinary suddenness and coordination. Waking early and being able to see nothing beyond my pearly windowpanes, marveling later as the fog tumbles gently into the valley, purifying the rolling slopes – either amber or emerald depending on the season – and dense foliage it leaves in its wake. Getting lost in the hills on a foggy day and trying in vain, against all reason, to hike just a little higher in pursuit of a vista to orient myself amidst familiar foothills and canyons cast now into an eerily unfamiliar gloom. Seeing nothing but what is directly before and beneath me, the sensation of not knowing is comfortable. As I wait for the fog to lift, I am acutely aware of having been absorbed into my surroundings. Its dampness caresses the surfaces of my skin and I feel continuous with everything that it touches. The totality with which the natural world seems to efface its human punctuations is haunting and ineffably beautiful.
Long trail runs through the protected territories of Mount Diablo state park are how I would muse about the afterlife, if prompted to think within such a paradigm. As my feet ricochet precariously down stretches of hoof-carved dirt slopes, I delight in letting go, in relinquishing my body to the propulsion of these uneven surfaces rather than guarding my steps carefully, thoughtfully. Instead I am guided by feelings – fresh air upon my face, my lungs readjusting to a controlled rhythm after the painful climb, supple branches and mossy tendrils grazing my limbs as I retreat further and further from the sprawl of housing developments and highways. My wandering mind embraces the dynamism of its environs without articulating a coherent thought. Knowledge is reformulated as the ability to be deeply affected by this synesthesia without needing to massage it into a defensible insight or systematic statement of belief.
Descending into a shaded canyon, I pay little heed as my sneakers splash through clear streams of water coursing across my path. The steady squelching of damp footwear, an irritating sound in any other context, is not dissonant among these sounds of trickling water, leaves rustling in the breeze, and the chatter of birds overhead. A sense of isolation presses down upon me not unpleasantly as I anticipate each fold of the trail I have come to know so well. Integrated and yet distinct, they form a system of elements whose order and permeable boundaries I have imposed through regular patterns of communion – first tall marsh grasses, then one stream bed, then another that must be crossed by leaping awkwardly from rock to rock, then the glade to my left, then the shrouded canyon, the low-lying tree bough where I must remember to stay straight rather than turn left more intuitively, then the Native American cave, the pond where I must take care at certain times of the year not to tread upon the tiny frogs migrating to or from its edges, then up a series of rolls until I arrive at a ridge boasting a spectacular view of the dense vegetation from which I have emerged.
No matter how much time passes between my visits home this landscape remains unchanged. Despite cosmetic variations in its flora, color schemes, saturation, temperature, and climate, the essence of our relationship is timeless. As time spent away increases, the particular way I inhabit these natural landscapes has become something like a device for forging continuity with another life. Although I commune with nature differently, though not any less successfully, in other places, the landscapes of this particular area have cultivated the disposition with which I continue to seek out and inhabit manifestations of the natural world.
Whenever I do return home, my heart aches to see familiar stretches of the topography scarred by new housing and commercial developments – a painfully constant phenomenon in most parts of California, but more recently in this area. Paradoxically, I suspect, an appreciation for the remarkable beauty and majesty of these landscapes is the very force that drives residents to want to penetrate them more deeply, to escape from densely populated areas and build homes that feel integrated into settings of natural beauty. In my case, it was growing up in such a home that established my profound connection to the surrounding environment, a primary relationship without which I might never have sought other points of access or felt the need to preserve these spaces so fervently. My love for and sense of belonging within these landscapes is underscored by a feeling of guilt for having violated their sanctity. And yet, the same conditions provided a contrast necessary for me to appreciate so profoundly the alternative experiences they offer.
Google Satellite Link to Mount Diablo State Park http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=37.870958,-121.972575&spn=0.018158,0.028281&z=15
A professional photography website I found with views of Mount Diablo and surrounding foothills http://www.pcimagenetwork.com/diablo2/p2.html
Blog entry about Mount Diablo State Park with several "nature" photos http://gambolinman.blogspot.com/2007/03/mt-diablo-st-park-traipsing-and.html
The home where I grew up.
Posted at Mar 31/2008 06:31PM:
claudia: I find it really interesting that in both of our descriptions, the central themes revolve around nature, timelessness and memory. It is the contrast between the cyclical quality of nature and the permanence of memory, alluded to in your description of your state park, that actually serves to heighten the importance of nature and its imprint on our senses and memories.
Posted at Mar 31/2008 10:33PM:
Elisa: Your final comment regarding feeling guilty that your presence has somehow violated sacred space was very intriguing to me. What is it about the sacred that is prohibitive? This seems similar to our discussion of sanctuaries, which are also sites of safety, but also often "inviolable" spaces.
Also, I was wondering what the relationships among nature, memory and a sense of "home" are. That is, does nature enhance a sense of belonging, or is it a byproduct? Can we create a "topography of home" through an investigation of the affective qualities of landscape?
Posted at Apr 01/2008 12:09PM:
Carissa: This piece was extremely evocative. I too agree with Elisa that in many ways this exploration feels intrusive to the natural landscape. I wonder if your perception of this sacred place will change if there is any type of future development? Like Keffie, here, it is apprent tht you also address our desire to communicate with nature. I keep on asking, particularly with development, will we be able to do so in the future?
Posted at Apr 01/2008 12:27PM:
keffie: I like how you evoke your particularly physical engagement with the landscape. Coming from an academic tradition, we tend to be so cerebral that sometimes this comes at the expense of engaging with our physicality and the ways in which this mediates our experiences. How would your "communing" be different if you sat still and meditated on the landscape as opposed to your very physical engagement with it? How can we use these questions to think about other sacred spaces, both built and "natural"?
