Wendell Berry writes, “Looking out over the country, one gets a sense of the whole of it: the ridges and hollows, the clustered buildings of the farms, the open fields, the woods, the stock ponds set like coins into the slopes. But this is a surface sense, an exterior sense, such as you get from looking down on the roof of a house.” This exterior sense that Berry speaks of is the sense that I, a stranger to my own land, possess. The beauty and stillness in the nature of my backyard has, in the past, been my “looking down on the roof of a house.” The knocking down of 25 something trees, the raking up of mulch, soil, and weeds, the digging of a pool, and the placing of heavy stepping stones are what Berry would consider a result of “…the true American pioneer, perfectly at rest in his assumption that he is the first and the last whose inheritance and fate this place will ever be.”
Admittedly, what has been done to my once wooded, untouched, natural backyard is equivalent to the building of the “road.” My family and I have unconsciously resisted our adaptation to the land and it wasn’t until my reading of Berry’s chapter, “A Native Hill” in The Art of the Common Place, that I realized this tragedy. Neither my family, nor I have allowed ourselves to become one with the land that surrounds us. I, especially have not respected, admired, felt guilt, or felt anything for that matterin regards to my backyard. As a child, it was a world for my imaginary horses to trample upon and now, as an adult, it is nothing short of a distraction, a chore to keep groomed and modernized. It wasn’t until recently that we took our pool down, ripped away the stepping stones, and I began seeing the yard in its entirety. The dismantling of my pool was somewhat of nature’s way of inviting me to witness my backyard through a different lens, a lens that has the ability to magnify the strength of the wind on a Monday morning. The openness of the trees is something I now view from the center of my yard, rather than from the window of my old bedroom up above.
My transformation is certainly not one that can be compared to Berry’s experience of transcending beyond his physicality and becoming one with nature. I find it to be very ironic that it wasn’t until the destruction of a manmade, money pit (my pool) that I began to truly swim in my backyard, looking through goggles that clarified the purity and intricacy of nature. It was this that inspired me to record observations about my backyard for the Twitterive assignment. I have yet to “rise above” myself when looking in awe at my yard, but Berry made it possible for me to walk outside, stand on a mound of mulch, and wonder about who used to be here, who will be here?, what will they do? My hope is that I will create my own path with the everyday passing in my yard as I tweet observations and “…allow [my] eyes to become dependent on [my] feet.”
Admittedly, what has been done to my once wooded, untouched, natural backyard is equivalent to the building of the “road.” My family and I have unconsciously resisted our adaptation to the land and it wasn’t until my reading of Berry’s chapter, “A Native Hill” in The Art of the Common Place, that I realized this tragedy. Neither my family, nor I have allowed ourselves to become one with the land that surrounds us. I, especially have not respected, admired, felt guilt, or felt anything for that matterin regards to my backyard. As a child, it was a world for my imaginary horses to trample upon and now, as an adult, it is nothing short of a distraction, a chore to keep groomed and modernized. It wasn’t until recently that we took our pool down, ripped away the stepping stones, and I began seeing the yard in its entirety. The dismantling of my pool was somewhat of nature’s way of inviting me to witness my backyard through a different lens, a lens that has the ability to magnify the strength of the wind on a Monday morning. The openness of the trees is something I now view from the center of my yard, rather than from the window of my old bedroom up above.
My transformation is certainly not one that can be compared to Berry’s experience of transcending beyond his physicality and becoming one with nature. I find it to be very ironic that it wasn’t until the destruction of a manmade, money pit (my pool) that I began to truly swim in my backyard, looking through goggles that clarified the purity and intricacy of nature. It was this that inspired me to record observations about my backyard for the Twitterive assignment. I have yet to “rise above” myself when looking in awe at my yard, but Berry made it possible for me to walk outside, stand on a mound of mulch, and wonder about who used to be here, who will be here?, what will they do? My hope is that I will create my own path with the everyday passing in my yard as I tweet observations and “…allow [my] eyes to become dependent on [my] feet.”
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