Quote Roundup #6: On Wendell Berry and our origins
Our personal identity is shaped by our geographical roots.
A new friend of mine, Joanne, invited me over for a visit in late winter. We chatted about all sorts of topics before landing upon one that struck me the hardest: where we live.
Joanne is from Long Island, and I can hear traces of her New York accent every time she relays a story with enthusiasm. I am from Indiana, and—I am told—I have a nasal Midwestern emphasis on certain words beginning with a hard a sound.
Our discussion branched into mutual grumbling over the terrible, interminable winters and weeks of gray skies here. Joanne and I agreed over spiced herbal tea that Fort Wayne carries a sort of pall over its landscape. There’s a heaviness here we can’t name, but many people whose families have dwelt here for generations tend to keep to themselves. It’s not a warm, inviting place to call home.
This is where the dialogue shifted for me: Joanne mentioned that Midwesterners tend to be stuck in their conservative beliefs, aren’t open-minded, tend not to be cultured or travel outside of their small towns.
My response? “Midwesterners are proud of their heritage. We recognize that those from larger cities are different from us, but we don’t care. We like the family values and traditions that make us who we are.”
I don’t think every Midwesterner is close-minded and uncultured. I’m not. We’re not all alike, just like not every East Coast-er is blunt, obnoxious, and impatient. Stereotypes develop from a kernel of reality but tend to spiral into broad generalizations that become unfair and inaccurate descriptions of groups of people. When we do this, we neglect to encounter each person as an individual.
That said, the location of anyone’s residence—or at least of where we were raised—does influence how we behave in the world, as well as what we believe. This month, I explore the concept of our roots: how our origins shape us, how we trace our identities back to the land in which we spent our formative years. Wendell Berry is my guide for this reflection.
…I still had a deep love for the place I had been born in, and liked the idea of going back to be part of it again. And that, too, I felt obligated to try to understand. Why should I love one place so much more than any other? What could be the meaning or use of such love?1
I used to love Indiana. I was born in Fort Wayne and lived here most of my life, minus a blip of a few years spent in Kentucky for my dad’s job transfer and a blink in New Mexico after Ben and I wed. The four seasons predictably come and go, and I get to enjoy the aspects of each that don’t develop in more temperate climates: snow (and ice) in winter, the proliferation of perennial flowers bursting with color in spring (daffodils, tulips, creeping phlox, irises, lilacs, viburnum, crabapple), lush green canopies from deciduous trees in summer (maples, oaks, hickories, sycamores, elms).
Before I married Ben, I didn’t think much about my origins. Fort Wayne was my home. I navigated the roads and waterways and parks with ease. I had friends here, long-time, historical friends I’d met decades earlier. I attended the same church as an adult that I did when I was in elementary school, and even the structures of places of worship, strip malls, and retail buildings changed little for many years.
But once Ben and I traversed over fifteen hundred miles from here to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where he’d purchased a condo for our starter home, I realized how lost I felt. Lonely. Out of place. Afraid.
The terrain was stunning: mountain sunrises in shades of pink and red each morning, mountain lions prowling in the canyon adjacent to our backyard, the scent of pinon and sage. Food was equally fantastic, a blend of Mexican, Indigenous, and Spanish flavors.
Immersed in such beauty and culinary decadence and cultural arts, I couldn’t complain. Still, why did I feel a sense of displacement? I missed the greenery, the foliage and abundant ground cover. I missed the rain. The fireflies in summer.
I longed for the comforts of home, but I didn’t realize it until I’d left it all behind.
And so here, in the place I love more than any other and where I have chosen among all other places to live my life, I am more painfully divided within myself than I could be in any other place.2
Have I chosen Indiana? I don’t know. What I did realize after my conversation with Joanne ended was this: This land raised me. The trees, the topography, the climate, the people. It’s a part of me. All of this shaped who I am, and I can’t escape that.
Now that Ben and I have returned to the place of my childhood, I am conflicted, though. It doesn’t feel like home anymore. There’s a split in my loyalty to Indiana. On the one hand, I will forever be connected to it. On the other hand, it’s very much the same—but I am not. I have changed.
I never understood why my classmates were eager to move away after high school graduation. “New York is where the action is,” they’d say. Or maybe L.A. Somewhere exciting, a big city. I didn’t feel the same. In fact, I felt embarrassed that I wanted to stay tied to Indiana and my family of origin.
Lately, I’ve entertained the notion of moving away someday, though I’m not sure when. Realistically, Ben and I are in the thick of raising children, and Sarah has an established team of medical professionals here, many of whom have worked with her for several years.
But what would it be like to live in the mountains?
Of the handful of times I’ve visited the Tennessee Smokies, it’s felt like I arrived where I belong. Though the Sangre de Cristos and the Rockies and the Poconos and Cascades and Appalachians are equally majestic in their own ways, it’s the Smokies where I feel most centered, most like myself.
But every time I come back to Indiana, it wraps me in its arms and says, “Welcome home.”
We are in the habit of contention—against the world, against each other, against ourselves.3
I was thinking about what it means to do our “civic duty.” This happened as I grudgingly ambled toward our voting precinct on a day when I did not want to vote. I have become disillusioned with our system of government. Still, I did some self-talk: “This is your responsibility as a citizen. It’s good to vote. It matters.”
Then I asked myself, what makes a good citizen, anyway? I came up with a short list before entering the voting building. If we all practiced some of these basic human (and humane) skills, I believe there would be less contention in our world:
Putting trash in proper receptacles instead of littering;
Common courtesy when in public: Greeting people with a smile and “hello,” and using manners, like “please” and “thank you;4”
Waiting our turn in line;
Sharing the road and being attentive to who is around us;
Caring for the earth, since it is our common home. I mean respecting wildlife, preserving natural landscapes and habitats for critters, treating plant and animal life with tenderness.
Patience with others and ourselves;
Extending the benefit of the doubt to others, especially strangers (like clerks, customer service reps, cashiers, those in the service industry), when they are curt. I like to believe they’re having a bad day, and in turn, I treat them with kindness.
Advocating for those who need us. I think of my kids, especially, regarding their education and health and overall wellbeing;
Be a good neighbor: Watch out for those who are elderly, single, for kids and families. Help those who are sick. Example: Ben mowed the lawn for two of our neighbors, one after she was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor at age 34 and the other when he had emergency surgery;
Yes, vote.
Before, I had lived according to expectation rooted in ambition. Now I began to live according to a kind of destiny rooted in my origins and in my life.5
When people complain about Indiana, it hurts me. Maybe it shouldn’t, but it does. All my life, I’ve heard slights against Indiana—that it’s a flyover state, that we’re all just a bunch of farmers (not true, but if it were, would that be so bad?), that there’s not much more than corn and cows, that there’s nothing to do or see here…
My opinion about Indiana isn’t that it stands out as a stellar place to live, in terms of geographic beauty or arts and culture. It is a decent place to raise a family, with one of the lowest costs of living in the U.S., and, well, Indiana—for what it’s worth—boasts one of the best waiver programs for people with disabilities in the nation.
Sometimes I stroll on the River Greenway, a path that winds around the great Maumee River. When I do, I picture the Indigenous peoples who must have boated and swum there, using it as a major landmark. Maybe the traders and trappers did, too. I’m astounded that the Maumee extends from Fort Wayne to Toledo and empties into Lake Erie. It’s 137 miles long, named after the Miami tribe who live in this region.
That’s history, yes, but it’s a part of my life. It’s etched into who I am. These are my origins, and I can’t deny that. No matter where I live throughout my life, regardless of ambition or dream or beauty, northern Indiana made me…me.
Berry, Wendell. The World-Ending Fire (Counterpoint: Berkeley, 2017), 6.
Ibid, 9.
Ibid, 34.
Yes, I realize this sounds like kindergarten again.
Ibid, 39.