Sense of Place
“If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.”
~ Wendell Berry
I grew up in this town but haven’t always called it home. I have lived different lives in different houses, but this one is unique. This is the first home of my own.
Nestled near the Pacific Ocean and the Coastal Redwoods, initially intended as a place to simply begin again, this home has anchored me through storms, nurtured me through growth, and has supported me as I’ve navigated transformative seasons of my life.
Thinking logic said returning to the Salinas Valley after living on the east coast for over 20 years without any family here didn’t make sense. I hadn’t grown up near grandparents or aunties or experienced summers with cousins coming and going. My two sons, both grown with families of their own, live in a different state. My friends here now were few. So, coming home to people was never part of the equation.
In an attempt to discover why I was drawn back and what was giving me the home-coming feeling, I became curious about my formative years and began exploring the connection between people and place. This exploration involved extensive time alone with nature where the answers gradually found me. I discovered that it was in these natural spaces, when I was free to suspend my thinking mind and connect with my feeling place that I truly began to understand. In these nothing-required-or-expected-of-me spaces, I reconnected with the girl whose experiences with people perpetually felt a bit inconsistent and unsettled while at the same time reflecting on the reliable and unwavering backdrop of my youth. Whether I was lying in a field or had my head in the clouds, the valley always met me and never left my side.
Of course, after time, just like any town, some things had changed. The dusty ol’ feed store where we’d get baby chicks and pet supplies had been replaced by a strip mall, my once-favorite burger joint was now a taco stand, and the candy shop was no longer downtown.
But the panoramic views were the same: Salinas was still cradled between two distinct mountain ranges: Fremont’s Peak standing sharp and firm to the east, and Mount Toro with its softer rolling vastness to the southwest had not shirked their duties as the guardians and sentinels of the valley. The tides of the sea were still ebbing and flowing, and lettuce, strawberries, and artichokes were still flourishing and generously offering their selfless bounty. I began to realize that these were the compass points and anchors that fostered a sense of authentic attachment and what I recognized as home. I had come home to the place that raised me.
Since my return, I’ve spent years exploring these spaces and have attempted to interpret the signals that spoke to my psyche that said, yes, you belong here.
Was it the unique scent of warm redwood and coastal oak in the summertime that took me back to camping trips when my biggest concern was hoping there were plenty of marshmallows and chocolate to last the weekend?
Was it the coastline enveloped in mist and fog and the kelp-covered sand dunes that took me back to freedom, exploration, and testing boundaries while cutting class with my friends and sneaking off to the shore hoping to get home and get the sand cleaned off before anyone found out we hadn’t been where we were supposed to be?
Or was it being in proximity of some of the most fertile soil in the world that took me back to riding my bike down the hill to the neighboring field to pick strawberries the size of tomatoes with juice so red your fingers and lips were stained for days?
From the moment we’re born, we seek the safety, security, and solace of home. While we wander within places and among people, we perpetually pursue the feeling of being welcomed. And although home is the ultimate destination of our human spirit, actualizing this restorative place has left many of us perplexed as we search for this home-coming feeling.
Many of us have longed for a place we once lived, with all of its essence and aliveness, and imagined ourselves there again. The places where we were authentically ourselves. The spaces that didn’t require a performance or an outcome.
We silently seek the spaces where we can explore our unique experience of being in the world, spaces to be playful, curious, dance, sing, and to daydream.
We then try to package those feelings and preserve them. We attempt to capture the essence by taking photos of a place and memorializing it by hanging it on our wall or displaying a memento of a particular experience in an effort to stay connected to that version of ourselves.
A sense of place is a bond. An emotional and physical attachment between an individual and the place where that person’s story was written. We assign layers of meaning to the places we live or the areas we pass through and discerning these layers allows us to feel more deeply. And although places and landscapes can mean very different things to different people, our personal memories, our rootedness is often tied to a location and our relationship and experiences within a particular place.
Perhaps we’ve been looking too hard for something that can’t be contained within four walls and a roof.
Perhaps that home-coming feeling is a place that invites us to write our own story while it anchors, nurtures, and supports us as we navigate all the transformative seasons of our lives.
Perhaps home is rootedness held only in memory.
Perhaps home is simply that place that quietly whispers, yes, you belong here.