I’ve been thinking a lot about place lately. Where I came from, where I am, and where I might yet go give me something to ponder over a cup of coffee or a nice glass of wine.
I’ve been thinking a lot about place lately. Where I came from, where I am, and where I might yet go give me something to ponder over a cup of coffee or a nice glass of wine.
You are a wonderfully gifted writer! Your thoughts about place remind me of Eudora Welty’s essay on the subject.
Both you and Miss Welty (who references everyone from Shakespeare to Faulkner) seem to intuitively know, and elegantly express, what so many of us overlook:
“There may come to be new places in our lives that are second spiritual homes closer to us in some ways, perhaps, than our original homes. But the home tie is the blood tie. And had it meant nothing to us, any other place thereafter would have meant less, and we would carry no compass inside ourselves to find home ever, anywhere at all. We would not even guess what we had missed.” Eudora Welty, “Place in Fiction,” COLLECTED ESSAYS, New York, 1994
Please keep writing!
I happened to be sitting in a McDonald’s in Florence, Alabama when this comment came through. I was searching for an Internet connection — maybe it’s all the tall pines but no one in my mother’s neighborhood seems to have wi-fi. McDonald’s is a wonderful cross-section of humanity anywhere and the accents in this part of Alabama range from country twang to the softer sounds of west Tennessee. How quickly I slide back into my native speech. Am I still trying to fit in oh so unobtrusively? Probably not. I like the sound; it’s part of my fabric and I don’t ever want to forget. Thank you, Duke, for this beautiful passage.