A Love of Place
I have revered communities that I am compelled to return to. Not like the swallows of Capistrano- theirs is an urgency of procreation- but places and their people that afford me a sense of community and of kinship and, if I am fortunate, also consist of a beauty, usually natural, that remains restorative long after the sojourn is over. Two such communities for me are Tucumcari, New Mexico, and the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan. The first is high plains desert, the second the forested and feral terrains embraced by the curve that is Lake Superior.
One offers a "wrap around sky", as my friend Ruth Daniel has described the high plains, and the land of Lake Superior, everything from boreal forests to bald eagles and bear. Both afford me the sense of tribe, of being part of something that is both closer to the natural world and nourishing in matters of psyche and fellowship, in ways distinct from the place where I dwell and in ways that are unique to less populated communities.
I drive long hours to reach each locale just as I did this week to reach the shores of Lake Superior, where I am now, looking out on a bright blue lake and sky and taking pleasure in 68 degrees and my companions Janice and Fred and their haven of eagles, coyote, fox; and the most pristine air imaginable. Nature and kinship and respite from the habitual "oh, my".
There's the sort of climatic shift having to do with weather conditions and then the sort having to do with the navigating of human relations and mood, etc. We are in flux, the universe and its beings, understudies in continuous revision and incessant fine-tuning as both organisms and as a system. The fragility of protoplasm and the tenacity of it are both in evidence and the paradox wows me.
I'm not in love with daylight saving time, the switching forth and back of clocks just as your eye and psyche adapt to the light and hour, but I can "spring ahead" with the best of you.