You tell this story so well, Grace, and completely capture the feeling of meeting people who subvert your expectations. Beyond that, your distinction between your native place and your home is insightful and essential.
If your home could only ever be your native place, you'd always feel uncomfortable and away from home. And if you treated your current home as your native place, you'd lose your connection to your roots.
Every time I go through customs in a foreign country, I get tripped up. They ask, "Where are you coming from?" Recently, the right answer has been New Jersey. But, my natural, instinctual response is, "Kansas City." No matter my destination, my point of origin is always the same — because I'm a Kansas-City native.
A beautiful piece Grace, and it certainly stirs up some nostalgia. I recall coming back home after a few years working and traveling around the world aboard cruise ships and visiting several dozen countries (though cruising is like an amuse-bouche for travel) and I just remember walking down to a nearby dyke with a lovely view of a lake and mountains I have seen countless times. I stood, taking in this vista with a palpable sense of awe and appreciation for its beauty that was there the whole time, thinking, "I really do live in one of the most beautiful places on earth." It was simply my perspective that had changed.
Your piece also brings up some thoughts I've had around the relationship between land and people. And that even though we're beings and animals that can scurry and move across the face of the Earth relatively unhindered it seems the relationship is bidirectional, like we are both fruiting bodies and stewards of the land and culture that we're from. I think this line of thinking was inspired by observations about soil quality, depletion, famine and history (Joel Salatin and Randall Carlson come to mind if I recall).
You tell this story so well, Grace, and completely capture the feeling of meeting people who subvert your expectations. Beyond that, your distinction between your native place and your home is insightful and essential.
If your home could only ever be your native place, you'd always feel uncomfortable and away from home. And if you treated your current home as your native place, you'd lose your connection to your roots.
Every time I go through customs in a foreign country, I get tripped up. They ask, "Where are you coming from?" Recently, the right answer has been New Jersey. But, my natural, instinctual response is, "Kansas City." No matter my destination, my point of origin is always the same — because I'm a Kansas-City native.
A beautiful piece Grace, and it certainly stirs up some nostalgia. I recall coming back home after a few years working and traveling around the world aboard cruise ships and visiting several dozen countries (though cruising is like an amuse-bouche for travel) and I just remember walking down to a nearby dyke with a lovely view of a lake and mountains I have seen countless times. I stood, taking in this vista with a palpable sense of awe and appreciation for its beauty that was there the whole time, thinking, "I really do live in one of the most beautiful places on earth." It was simply my perspective that had changed.
Your piece also brings up some thoughts I've had around the relationship between land and people. And that even though we're beings and animals that can scurry and move across the face of the Earth relatively unhindered it seems the relationship is bidirectional, like we are both fruiting bodies and stewards of the land and culture that we're from. I think this line of thinking was inspired by observations about soil quality, depletion, famine and history (Joel Salatin and Randall Carlson come to mind if I recall).