Hello, is there anybody in
there?
Trying
to piece together your past, whether it be to create a linear roadmap of your
existence or just in the random ponderings of your day really is "too
formidable" and "too complicated" to the point where the feeling of the mystery
is right there at the tip of your mind, tempting you to step into its vast
beckoning arms (294). We were presented
with a myriad of different subtopics to mull over, our sense of place in the
world being of utmost importance. That is the subject I found easiest to write
about.
There are a few instances in my childhood that stand out brilliantly in full
color. These are the events I can most directly attribute my existence as I
know it today. I agree wholeheartedly with Barry Lopez when he views "geography
as a shaping force-- a specific and
particular setting for human experience. (271)" Growing up, we were
constantly moving and thus my geography was forever changing. Each place that I
lived, however, had a specific and intimate impact on the person I developed
into. My earliest memories were living at my Grandma's house along with my
young aunts and mother. It was an older neighborhood full of 70s architecture,
a typical street with trim lawns and sprinkler systems at full force in the
early morning hours. I must have been about two years old when I cut my own
hair and guiltily wandered into the front yard only to deny to my 15 year old
aunt playing basketball that I hadn't done anything to myself. That was my
first lie, or at least a lie I made consciously. And everything about that day
is so vivid— the way the light bounced off the hot cement of the drive way, "the
way sunlight everywhere [etched] lines to accentuate forms," the way the leaves
rustled as the slight breeze tugged on Mindy's shirt. My view of the world was
as if I was staring through a soft lens, everything dreamy and romantic. (271)
Cut to
the following years in San Antonio, where we moved from apartment to apartment, and I moved
from school to school. Daycare became an essential part of my world, and I can
still remember the fragments of that time; the way the rooms smelled, the harsh
fluorescent lighting, the way the blue plastic sleeping mats clung to my sticky
skin. I remember creating friendships with kids at each different apartment we
lived at, with each school I attended, and likewise, I remembered each time the
painful letting go when I left these people behind. The childhood years in this
time were spent outside in a very structured and man-made environment. Romps in
the wilderness included some well landscaped playgrounds and an empty field
that later became the Quarry Market Mall. Like flashing images from a sappy
scene in a movie where two lovers reflect on their days as children, I can see
myself sucking the ends off of honeysuckles and picking wildflowers and being
careful to never tread on a bluebonnet. I remember being stuck in traffic jams
and riding school buses. And I remember the baby birds that my step father and
found that had fallen out of trees or that the cat brought to us, "the dumb
animals, whom he had saved" and I remember this deep affinity for the wildlife
I encountered in an otherwise urban environment. My step-father worked at the
San Antonio Zoo and during the summer days I would wander around it for hours,
from exhibit to exhibit, exhibits I had seen 50 times before. My romps in
nature, but such an unnatural nature it was.
And then, for the first time, I moved away from San Antonio, only 25 minutes away to a town called
Boerne. We lived in the country, and for the first time in my 7 years I became
severely isolated from people my own age. There wasn't anybody around, and all
I had to amuse myself were fossils out in my front yard, the spiders I'd find in
the cracks of rocks, and the "height and breadth of the sky. (271)" I remember the hills flushed violently orange
in the spring time as flowers covered every expanse that your eye could come in
contact with. And I remember the night, where the stars go on infinitely
forever and ever and ever and ever. There are no words to describe the sense of
awe that I felt, much in the way Hopkins couldn't articulate the beauty of
nature, for "few are the ears that hear it. (269)" As a child it's much easier to be attuned to
the wonders of nature, but in Boerne I was growing up and the seriousness of
the future was weighing down on me. There was this emphasis upon left brain
thinking, but as long as I could look up at the sky at night, my right brain
was forever coddled and loved.
We moved
once again to a place that championed the worst of my prior cities of
habituation. On further reflection, the environment of this place played the
least on who I was, and it was more the people I encountered. How lovely it is
to now be back in a big city where not only are the magnificent beauties of
urban architecture surrounding me, but just a few miles away there is the glory
of the hills, of nature, and a night sky so beautiful and full with stars that
it can make me cry.
All of
my experiences have composed, or "put together," my place in the world today
(475). Moving around often, it's hard to
decide what "particular places makes [me] feel the most comfortable. (251)" There was never a permanent sense of
residence or of home, but I don't necessarily wish that there was any home. I
hated moving and being uprooted all the time, but in the end my "fate [has]
become opportunity. (297)"
