Landscape, Still
“Landscapes are, in general, one of the few predictables we have.”
Deborah Tall, From Where We Stand
As I walk and write and think about the place we live, about its texture and topography and my ability to bond with it, I enjoy collecting the thoughts and experiences of others who have made similar journeys.
Deborah Tall moved to Geneva, New York, to teach, and From Where We Stand is the story of her becoming connected to that place. She does it through coming to know and love the landscape, particularly the lake, and she does it through learning the history of its people.
The Finger Lakes Region has made her its citizen by throwing her back on the land, she says, “instead of distracting me with urban amenities.”
In the suburbs it is easy to be distracted with urban amenities. Here we are only 10 minutes drive from one mall and 15 minutes from another. Our landscape is mostly hidden from view by large houses and strip malls.
But get out of the car, cut through back yards, find the hidden trails, and you will find landscape. It is still here.
One thought on “Landscape, Still”
It's one of the finest, most memorable summers of life, 1961. I'm a kid in the cabin-like lake house of my best friend's family. It's an exotic excursion into the deep north from our hometown, Leesburg, Florida. Soon I would see New York City for the first of a number of times. Two of those times remain with me like embers.
This summer we would see the real Yankees, Mantle and Maris and Boyer and Howard and Ford, in the real Yankee Stadium and eat pastrami for the first time in the Carnegie Deli where I would bring my daughter thirty years later.
But this summer night I'm reading Bram Stoker's Dracula in a top bunk bed, and the strangely cool northern night breeze is flowing through the window. The next day my buddy and I will row a wooden boat to an island in the middle of the lake–Keuka Lake in the Finger Lakes region.
Spirit of place, tracks in our memories, hidden trails.