P = MV. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Right now my momentum is in the reading of books. Maybe it’s the Kindle, maybe not, but I’m like many readers who go on literary binges only to alternate with periods of print sobriety. The heavy, spring snow last week also kept me in, giving me a much needed opportunity to clean up my study. In doing so I came across an unread freebie, “Eternity In Our Hearts” by RC Sproul, Jr. The cover painting of Van Gogh’s “The Siesta” and its subtitle “Essays On The Good Life” were enough to pull me in.
In 1996, Sproul the Younger left Orlando in search of a sense of place and a sense of community. He found it in the mountains of Virginia. It was the description of his discovery that inspired this post:
“What we love about our little community is there is a here here. Where we are is distinct from everywhere else. Some of those elsewheres are also distinct, but such places are fewer and fewer….”
“We run into our friends in part because we do not live in a megapolis. Our circles are small enough, and we live close enough to one another, that our paths cross even when we don’t plan for it. We run into each other at the grocer and at the diner. We pass each other on the road, and no matter how many more miles we have to go, we know that we are home…”
“Home is sweet, not spicy. This sense of place gives a sense of peace. It is more an anchor than a big wave to surf, more the strong tower than the bungee ride down. We have this sense of place because we have sought it. For many of the locals a sense of place is as natural – an as unnoticed – as the air they breathe. We came here, however, because there was no air to breathe in the many places we came from…”
“Our children will forget when we arrived, and like a child in a dream, even as they grow older they will believe that they have always been here. This place will be to them as the water is to the fish, as it has become to us, a source of daily life. And so they will certainly fail to thank us. But their peace, their sense of place will be all the thanks we need.”
So it was with me in January 1981. My friend Soko and I took a three-day train trip from Pittsburgh, PA to Pasco, WA to visit our friend Rick. We were well stocked with Christmas fruitcake, smoked salmon, red wine and I forget what else. We toasted to our trip, “The Paso Fiasco”, in Amtrak paper cups. Let off in the darkness of the eastern Washington desert, we spent the night at some friend of Ricks and were fresh for the early morning trek across the Blue Mountains.
The landscape was entirely new to me. Instead of viewing just a few degrees of sky thru the thick forest of Pennsylvania, I had 180 degree vistas. Instead of being able to see maybe a mile at some break in the trees, I was able to look from the top of Tollgate across the bulk of Washington to the glistening volcano caps that marched north thru the Cascades.
We wound down that mountain and stopped in the tiny town of Elgin. I could already sense that there was a here here. Then it was back up and across the ponderosa and wheat savannah that separates the La Grande valley from the Minam River drainage. Once down in that narrow, forested canyon I knew I was home. I hadn’t yet made it into the Wallowa Valley, but I was sure that this was the place. It took me nine years before I could actually claim an address there, but each time I visited I knew that I was home. It was sweet, not spicy. Each time I left, I knew I was leaving home. Somehow I also knew that my time there was not forever. It is still good to go back. I breathe easy, settle in and know that my sense of place is real.