Place as Cartography of the Self
On writing the places that make and unmake us
“If you don't know where you're from, you'll have a hard time saying where you're going.”
—Wendell Berry
Why does place matter? Can learning to write—really write—about place change our writing and our lives?
Yes.
I have written about this before.
Place is forceful because we are born into geography even before we are born into language. The places of our lives, long before we can name them, shape us. Through soil, water, light, scent, and feel, through the streets we walked as children, the kitchens where adults cooked or played cards or drank or raged or told stories or bandaged our cuts or cut our hair or held us when we wept, through the landscapes that framed our first griefs or joys, the places in our lives become sources of identity, belonging, and creative possibility.
Understanding the places we come from is not nostalgia; it is necessary. We transform in the light of this understanding, both as individuals and as artists.
That’s why we’ll…