This is a very good and thought-provoking read - I love how the theme of place and affection for it has become much more prominent in recent years
Perhaps there must be some connection to the past to love a place well? It is important that we see the landscape (in the words of James Rebanks I think) as the creation of men and women who have gone before us and poured their life and soul into creating it into what it is. For when we can see or perceive the human work and love that has gone before us, appreciation comes more easily/naturally - and in time love too.
Related to this, walking many a time through the cemetery that backs onto my garden, reading the grave inscriptions and learning the stories of those who walked these streets and fields before me in my small UK city/town has helped me to love it more.
I think the idea of intentionality is significant -- love of place requires us to be intentional about being present, about paying attention, about committing ourselves to being part of the ecology, the community of a place. When we disdain the landscape or the people or the culture/habits of a place for whatever reason, we will find it hard to come to love that place. Loving a place can be instinctive, I think, but it can also be a choice.
Have you read Zorrie by Laird Hunt, a National Book Award nominee? It's about a woman who lives her entire life in central rural Indiana, a landscape and kind of community that the author feels is neglected in novels. I know this territory well. I choose to drive home from Tennessee to our homeplace in northern Indiana on the old Michigan Road that winds through these farmlands. Hunt, a professor at Brown, lived here with his grandmother and admires the women like her who were long-haul heroes, giving a place its fabric and backbone.
This is a very good and thought-provoking read - I love how the theme of place and affection for it has become much more prominent in recent years
Perhaps there must be some connection to the past to love a place well? It is important that we see the landscape (in the words of James Rebanks I think) as the creation of men and women who have gone before us and poured their life and soul into creating it into what it is. For when we can see or perceive the human work and love that has gone before us, appreciation comes more easily/naturally - and in time love too.
Related to this, walking many a time through the cemetery that backs onto my garden, reading the grave inscriptions and learning the stories of those who walked these streets and fields before me in my small UK city/town has helped me to love it more.
I think the idea of intentionality is significant -- love of place requires us to be intentional about being present, about paying attention, about committing ourselves to being part of the ecology, the community of a place. When we disdain the landscape or the people or the culture/habits of a place for whatever reason, we will find it hard to come to love that place. Loving a place can be instinctive, I think, but it can also be a choice.
Have you read Zorrie by Laird Hunt, a National Book Award nominee? It's about a woman who lives her entire life in central rural Indiana, a landscape and kind of community that the author feels is neglected in novels. I know this territory well. I choose to drive home from Tennessee to our homeplace in northern Indiana on the old Michigan Road that winds through these farmlands. Hunt, a professor at Brown, lived here with his grandmother and admires the women like her who were long-haul heroes, giving a place its fabric and backbone.