As I write this, I sit contentedly in the meadow adjacent to the Sandy River. Ice clinks in a Nalgene filled with tap water, Smart Wool socks snuggle happy feet, and a soft flannel shirt warms my shoulders. I am at peace, lounging upon yellow-green grass that in the next couple of months will soon be covered with a blanket of snow. I am happy for two reasons: it is my favorite time of the year and I just purchased my first pair of Carhartt pants.
After departing Reny's with my guilty purchase swinging at my side, I raced to put them on and proceeded to call my sister who works for the Utah Conservation Corps and wears the pants every day. "Rachel, I am on Cloud 9," I exclaimed. "These pants are life-changing." I was--and continue to be--ecstatic.
So, looking across the meadow with my new dark brown pants that accompany my tan Carhartt jacket, I'm incognito among the colors of this landscape. It is the transition time between fall and winter and there are truths billowing about these days. Unlike the sweltering summer, the air is breathable, fresh, raw. The brilliant oranges, fire reds, and blazing yellows of peak leaf-peeping season have passed and the deciduous trees now turn to one another, slightly embarrassed in their awkward transition phases. Where have our clothes gone? they question. They'll be neglected by locals ad tourists alike until next spring when green chloroplasts rub their fingers together for the magic of the vernal painting.
But I love these stark trees, the dark green conifers interspersed among twiggy ash grays and beige trunks and the small tufts of crimson and gold holding their breaths until they too will be swept away by late fall's winds.
It's a landscape that does not lie, has nothing to hide. We are able to see her faults, her insecurities, her vulnerabilities. Few write longingly about trees without leaves or dustings of snow or red ripe berries, but I can't help but view their situation as admirable. Nostalgic for their past days of wonder, hungry to wear winter's evening gown, they wait in limbo, the shy girl in the corner, wanting to dance but lacking a partner.
Scattered milkweed wisps bounce across papery leaves, wilted weeds, and the last of the dandelions. It's a scene that wouldn't make the front cover of a brochure, wouldn't invite foreigners to play with this kind of Maine. But I'm allured by the grit and gray, the solitude and quietness that pervades hours such as these.
Wendell Berry observes that "Even the ugliest garden weed earns affection from us when we consider how faithfully they perform an indispensable duty in covering the bare ground and in building humus. The weeds, too, are involved in the business of fertility" (9-10). This makes me think about what in nature is "valued" by society. The first things that come to mind are postcards, snapshots, slices of scenery that provide awe and admiration. What I'm referring to can mostly be placed under the broad category of the pastoral--the idyllic fantasies of harmonious relationships as projected onto nature by humans. Of course, art in association with nature must at all times be revered and used as a tool for understanding, but over-simplified art, which distorts reality, can be detrimental to the environmental movement.
Berry asserts, "We must not go there to escape the ugliness and the dangers of the present human economy. We must not let ourselves feel that to go there is to escape" (18). "There" refers to nature and his analysis suggests that by distancing ourselves from nature and dubbing it "other," humans further deepen the chasm held within the statement man vs. wild. He proposes we adopt a new way of thinking: man with wild.
I can't lie and say that I don't view my little escapades to the meadow as escapism. I'm a dreamer as much as the next guy. But through incorporating everyday ventures such as these, however small, I'm in effect breaking down the "vs" and including myself in a continuing conversation with the landscape in my own backyard. In recognizing the importance of transitions, when nature lacks a so-called conventional beauty, we can begin to recognize the complex web of ecological relationships responsible for creating the world in which we live.
I found your blog post to be quite intriguing because it got me thinking about the places that I consider some of my favorites in nature, places that I go to just for the sake of feeling like I can be a part of nature aside from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
ReplyDeleteBeing from Connecticut, I can say that I have never bought any Carhartt merchandise simply because it's not very popular where I'm from. I actually had never really seen a Carhartt vest or jacket until I came to UMF. Then it seemed as though I saw them everywhere. I felt as thought I was some sort of outcast or alien because I didn't wear or even own any Carhartt. What I came to find was that the more time I spent in Maine, the more I wanted to own a Carhartt and the more I wanted to wear it whenever I went out into nature, be it for a walk or merely to just sit in the grass. Now, after spending the last couple of years in Maine, I find myself buying wool socks and thermal shirts just to feel as thought I'm getting the full Maine experience, and to my surprise, I really like the feeling I have when I am wearing things that I started wearing when I came here. It makes me feel authentic in some sort of way, especially when I wear them outside of the public realm, that being nature (and I still do not own any Carhartt for the record).
I think that I completely have to agree with Berry in saying that we have to adopt the "man with wild" idea because otherwise, we are merely competitors and overachievers, battling with nature to see who can be the better of the two, all along knowing that nature will inevitable always be better. I think in a way, we do find an "escape" when we travel to places that we consider to be more "nature" than others. Even more interesting, I think that by wearing our Carhartts and wool socks, we feel as though we are prepping ourselves for that escape so that once we have escaped, we can blend with nature and be "with" it. Berry claims that, "We go to wilderness places to be restored, to be instructed in the natural economies of fertility and healing, to admire what we cannot make" (pg. 17). I think that by going to places like the Sandy River or other places that makes us feel alive and remind us that we are in fact inferior and just part of a larger scale of infinite moving parts, we are able to reorient ourselves, hence being "restored." This, like you claim, helps us to recognize our relationship with nature and hopefully to appreciate it more, reminding us that our constant struggle with nature is what's going to destroy it and take back the thing that "we cannot make."