Place non-attachment

 Although generations of geographers (myself included) have studied “sense of place”—scrutinized, surveyed, and theorized; coined new terms and debated old ones; written papers and books and dissertations—anyone alive in the place-world (thus, everyone) intuitively recognizes: the more time a person spends in a place, the more we fill that place with memories and meanings. A simple matter of opportunity and exposure. More moments = more memories. More memories = more meaning.

Memory-full and meaning-full does not, however, mean memorable much less meaningful. Sense of place does not automatically translate to place-attachment, an affinity for a place.

After living in a small city in Upstate New York for nearly nine years, I have left. I am not sorry to go.

It’s a perfectly nice little city: safe, comfortable, scenic in its nestled-in-a-river-valley-surrounded-by-farms-and-forest-coated-hills-rural-Upstate-calendar-scene sort of way. The valley fills with fog in the spring and the hillsides erupt in color come autumn. Geese honk along the river and I’ve seen more than one bald eagle soar right over Main Street. The city itself is eminently livable: downtown features shops with classic brick storefront charm, creative restaurants and college-town bars, a plaza for the seasonal farmers' market, Christmas tree, and an endless parade of parades. (The town sure loves parades.) Elsewhere, there are tree-lined streets with big old houses, parks with tennis courts and baseball diamonds, people on the sidewalk who wave and say hello. It’s the sort of town where strangers saw me out walking and stopped to offer a ride, even in the middle of the pandemic.

I walked a lot. Some 30,000 miles, I estimate, through several pairs of shoes. That’s how I get to know a place. Memories, meanings, step by step.

I remember walking up the hill to the college where I worked. Not a steep hill, but enough to get the blood flowing 6 a.m.-ish. Peaceful in the pre-dawn darkness: past sleeping houses, a dark patch of woods, a starry open stretch onto campus, just me and the deer and a steady line of cars. Relaxing in reverse, near or post-sunset: more people on the sidewalks, more traffic on the streets. Sheltered enough during rainstorms, pleasantly cool in late summer; less enjoyable in winter, when I came to anticipate which sidewalks would be shoveled and which would be knee-deep in snow or slippery-smooth with ice. I must have walked up and down that hill 700 or 800 times. It was a nice enough commute, but I will not miss it.

I remember the long loop around—a full eight miles up and down hills, past hops fields, hayfields, horse pastures, trees, trees, trees. In some spots, a view out across the entire valley; in others, tight ribbons of water tumbling through steep streams. I came to know where to look for the first trout lilies and where to keep an eye out for porcupines; where there are apple trees in autumn and maples tapped in spring. Where drivers tend to be distracted and cut corners. When the school bus drivers honk and wave hello. That route, I probably only walked a few hundred times. I will not miss it.

Then there’s the stretch of road leading west of town, along the river valley, between the highway and the railroad tracks, river itself inaccessible. Finally, free from trees, houses, sidewalks, with an open view of wetlands, hills, sky. (Electric wires, buildings, traffic.) That, I must have walked at least a thousand times, each direction. I walked through white-outs and thunderstorms, past herons and eagles, a hundred red-winged blackbirds and a million peepers singing to the spring. Hawks on electric poles, beavers and turtles not quite dodging traffic. Near-daily photos of cloudscapes. I will not miss it.

Better yet, the town is full of trails. Well-maintained and well-used, yet never overrun by hordes of hikers or mountain bikers. I got lost dozens of times in the tangle of routes in the woods behind the college, spent Sundays looping the flats down by the river, and, most importantly, found solace in the network directly behind my house. Clad in sandals in summer or snowshoes in winter, I could step out my door, up into the woods, and wind around for hours. Alongside a pine-studded ravine running with waterfalls or icefalls, speckled bright in the morning sun. Past series of stone fences, laboriously constructed, now fading into moss and fallen leaves. Through birch groves and brush glowing green in summer, grey-white in winter, and color upon color upon color in autumn. I couldn’t possibly count how many times I paced those trails, or simply went up into the woods and found a spot to sit. Unlike the walks to campus or around town, those weren’t part of a daily routine—that space was my refuge, where I went when I needed to think or unthink, the only area I might possibly have missed.

But then, last fall, a diamond-shaped, bright orange sign appeared at the entrance: “Logging in process. Keep out.”

I kept out for a little over a month, while machines tore up the trail and tore down the ash trees (and any other trees in their wake.) Then, when it seemed like the operations were done, I crept carefully up the wide, muddy tank-wide scar to stand in a tangle of logs, stumps, and branches. Everything I’d known there was gone: the pine, the birch, the brush, the trail. Rationally, I know that it was a salvage operation—an attempt to prevent the spread of the invasive emerald ash borer—and that the woods will eventually recover. But that knowledge/hope doesn’t change what I saw and how I felt. Devastation. Devastated.

It was all wrong. For nearly nine years, I kept rationalizing, reasoning, trying to figure out why I couldn’t appreciate the landscape and community the way anyone ought to be able to. It’s such a nice town, such kind people, such a pretty place. But, through all of my walking and thinking, my moments and memory-making, I knew: not my place, not my place, not my place.

And that's okay?