Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don’t care, I’m still free
You can’t take the sky from me.
Joss Whedon, Firefly Theme Song
It has been a bit over a month since I came home, crossing the mountains from big sky to the towering green trees of western Washington. I returned to a place of connections, of closeness, moving from a sort of lack of ownership to a prevailing sense of once again belonging. The land I remember has changed – roads once lined with trees are now housing subdivisions, some roads go further than they once did – but yet, it’s still familiar. The landmarks I once knew and counted on still (mostly) remain. All the same, I have found it necessary to reorient, to rediscover, to reinvent my understanding of this place, to find new routes from point to point, new places to fall in love with. I am closer to my family – still separated by some distance, but much more reachable now – and hang out with the people I once knew and spent an abundant amount of time with.
Yet there is still some sense of loss in this homecoming; while I felt disconnected in the deserts, as if I were too far away from everything that mattered, I still developed a sense of (perhaps grudging) belonging. I moved to eastern Washington for the job, to gain experience and a better understanding of what I needed to make my work personally satisfying. My life there allowed me to awaken to things I hadn’t known before, both about myself and about the world we live in.
Though it is Montana that we traditionally christen with the moniker of “Big Sky Country”, in reality, that line begins dropping out of the Cascade range into the eastern side of the state. The point where you recognize this is different for each Cascade pass in Washington – for White Pass, there’s a moment where the firs disappear to be replaced by rock walls and winding rivers, for Snoqualmie Pass, there is simply an abrupt transition from firs to meadows and farmland. Regardless, the effect is the same: the cloistered sense of travel prevalent in many places in western Washington is quite abruptly ripped open, the sky revealed as if to say “here I am!”, expanses of scenery opening themselves to you in ways rarely enjoyed elsewhere. There is a unique connection here, not to land, not to place, but to what lies above us. What I know I will miss is not the barren openness of Washington’s desert, but the lines of trees planted to create windbreaks that change color all at once in fall against a backdrop of soaring blue, the mists rolling in across the Columbia in the morning to obscure the land and shroud it in invitation. I will miss fall more than any other season there, except for the moment in spring where the brown bleakness explodes with greens – blink and you’ll miss it (and I frequently, unfortunately, missed it).
It is not that I felt forced there or was isolated from others or had no friends – I had a personal choice to make when I was offered the job. What I hadn’t thought too deeply about was what that would do to my sense of community, my mental connections to the green that has surrounded me for most of my life. I missed it – it wasn’t there, and a part of me needed it. It explained why holidays and other trips west always made me feel more at home, particularly so when family was involved. When I realized that my connection to the work wasn’t as strong as it had been in the first months of the job, I began to search at home for alternatives.
It was interesting to me that my definition of “home” never wavered – I never really considered the desert “home”. I called it “home”, but it was not the same sense as it is amongst the trees. Now that I am home, really home, Whedon is right – take away everything else, and the sky is the one thing that remains in memory of my time east.
~ C. (Gaius) Charles
Very nice piece with good images. I am glad that you came to respect the sky, as it teaches one a lot about his or her place in the world. It is almost time for the annual flowering of Eastern Washington’s hills, but my guess is it won’t happen until late April this year. While it may be an eyeblink, it is a lovely time no matter how brief.