GUEST BELI-BLOGGER BRADLEY W : MEANING OF PLACE

Do we choose place, or does place choose us? After many years of living in differing landscapes, place and my heritage are beginning to become more and more important in my everyday patterns of life. Our lives are defined by more than just the geo-political lines drawn, congressional representatives, the location of our job, or where our home is located. Today, now more than ever, we have lost our sense of place. Not recognizing our membership in place, the landscape, and pattern's of life has caused separation anxiety and a severe loss of the memory of that place. How many of us know what watershed we live in, or what the story is of our particular landscape? Do we know the changes of the seasons and how it effects the landscape? Instead, we confine our knowledge of place to the highways and byways, closest grocery store and most convenient Starbuck's, and how long it takes to get to work and home again.

As I've grown older it has come to my increasing attention and awarness that my "place" is very important to my development as a person. I pay more and more attention to the story of the place, the landscape, changes in the seasons, and the voice and memory of the place. We share this wonderful tapestry of life, sharing a common memory that has meaning beyond the scale of an industrial template.

What do you find unique about your place? Can you locate the 'being' of your place, whether that be a river or some defining mytho-geographic story?

I AM "my place" in the now, a place that will chance tomorrow, a piece of HIS/HER-story. Selfish perhaps.

You are right, most people are displaced. It is a sign of the times... one must move to get ahead. When I look at the words written here at BeliBlog, I think the commentors(is that a word?) do grasp their roots. I am comforted by visiting and reading; it is a comfort to read familar line-makers. "The Now" is fast and furious. What we know today may not be tomorrow. The self that is within has to grow to match IT. "Place" is irrelevant for me. My arms reach across many places. Home is where my heart is. It is personal and feeling... it fills me... it has no place... it is my base. Isn't "your place" the seat of your being that grows and plants it's feet in another? I hope I am "that place"... a friend that shares and gives. "Place" is so variable. Perhaps I am a fool. :-)

The old saying "Home Is Where The Heart Is" I don't think is true any more. I look at my brother, he has lived in seven places since he graduated from college in '61 following were the job took him and his family. His kids are scattered across the U.S. and one is in Germany. They see their grandchildren by web cameras and if they are lucky at Christmas or Thanksgiving. With children it was easy for them to make friends and the kids were involved in after school activities. But now it is harder make friends as they move to a new town and I think that as they approach their retirement years that they regret not settling down in one place.
For me I always lived in the same town here in Connecticut. I find comfort knowing a lot of the town's people and I have a feeling of belonging. However that is all changing I as begin my early steps to transition. I am slowing breaking off from the past and I am looking forward to see what the future brings. I do not know how many of my old friends will accept me, I hope that they are open-minded.
In the past, our forefather's emigrated here or they packed up and moved out west. But, that was different. They moved from one place to settle down in another. They re-established their root again, they did not keep moving all their lives.

For me, there's always a comfort in knowing my neighbors and their neighbors. I have sensed a renewed spirit of place upon spending more and more time here in Missouri near my family. But, I am grateful to the people, places, and institutions that comprised my sense of place when this young country boy moved out East for the Ivy League. People inside & outside Brown created such a place of comfort I stayed for 12 years! Now, I travel back & forth. Home and place for me are like Tillich's "Ground of Being." It is a sort of "Other" that dichotomously is central to who I am and yet is always just beyond my grasp.

Brad, I've been going through the 'concept of place' discussion with myself for several months now. I've been trying to find a new home and thus figure out WHERE I wanted to live. I knew that I wanted to be close to work, 20 minute commute or less. I knew I wanted to be close to I-70 for ski and city access. I knew that I wanted to be near parks and open space. But, I didn't think that I had any place prejudices.

As my search wore on, I realized how much my current town means to me and how much I felt that I 'belonged' in, or to, Arvada. Few 26 year-old, single males would want to live in Arvada, there's 'nothing' going on here. But, I am somehow drawn to this place.

Arvada was my first 'home' in Colorado, and I haven't moved more than three miles during the four years I've lived on this side of the Mississippi. I love our disc golf course, our Old Towne, our obnoxiously narrow streets, our town fairs and our logistically taxing lack of through streets. I love the monthly community newsletter, The Arvada Report. I even check out my fair city's website, www.ci.arvada.co.us. There's something about this place that makes me feel a sense of place.

I'm buying a condo (http://www.mattholzmann.net/condo/) above our new outdoor recreation field complex, Stenger and Lutz Fields. I'm buying a condo in this place, because I feel right in Arvada. Thanks for making us think about the importance of place in our lives.