This Must Be The Place

In class Onno posed the question, and I'm paraphrasing here "Do you think this location will become a place for you?" and I have to say, no I do not think it will. It's not that this house will not mean something to me, it already does, but I think Sagoff says it best on page 166 of the reading;

"A natural landscape becomes a place - 'a shape that's in your head' - when it is cultivated... The hunter, trapper, angler or farmer who comes to terms with nature in particular places in pursuit of specific purposes may get to know its local conditions so intuitively that they get built into his(her) reflexes. This contrasts entirely with the attitude of the outsider, for example, the tourist who comes to see a spectacle."

I love that he uses the word cultivate, and I've come to understand that I will never cultivate this land, both in a physical sense and an emotional sense. I will never be here as the ground thaws and I can plant a garden in the late spring, watch it grow through the summer, and harvest it in the fall. I will never need to cut down a tree from the surrounding woods to survive through the winter, or (need to) trap an animal that has invaded my space, mainly because its not mine, I am a guest in this hotel. From my perspective this place will always belong to Bob and the generations of his family that have cultivated this land before my arrival. I may have some type of legend left after I leave for I am one of the first Hamilton students to dwell here, but I will never feel the same way about this compound as I do about my childhood home, and when I am forced to leave here at the end of the semester I will not experience the same crushing disappointment, sadness and anger I felt when my mother moved out of said home while I was on a trip to China. 

While thinking about this I am also forced to think about a story Annie told about her first day as a summit steward on Algonquin. The woman that she was working with apologized before they began their descent because she was so familiar with the mountain that she could run down the steep boulders, having already memorized each step she would need to take. That is cultivation. It is being so painfully aware of your surroundings that it becomes ingrained in you, or second nature so to speak. Meanwhile I can't take two steps outside in the dark with out tripping, or remember which drawer keeps the knives and which keeps the silverware. Cultivation is to do something habitually, to dedicate your time and energy to a practice for an extended period of time, and I'm not here long enough to do that. 

I also like the word "outsider". Over the weekend my mother brought my car up from Albany where it had been in repair, and I had been borrowing my aunt and uncles car. It's a 2003 Nissan Altima bucket of rust, that shakes aggressively past 65 mph and really groans around 70, but I would give anything to have it back, mainly because it has New York plates. Now that I have my Volvo again I feel instantly recognizable as an outsider with my PA license plate; I feel like I've lost my membership to an exclusive club, and I'm upset about it. It's a strange feeling, recognizing that I am a temporary resident here, yet I want to blend in as much as possible. I feel like semi-permanent hair dye, I'm not too different from your natural hair color, I'll be gone soon, and I don't want anyone to identify me as fake while I'm here. When it comes down to it, this place feels like home for the time being, but as soon as the semester is over it will be one chapter of my life, and it terms of the history of the Adirondack park I am almost completely inconsequential, unless I do something really crazy, like burn it all to the ground. 

For your pleasure:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9gK2fOq4MY