Anchor– At West End Gallery
The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,
is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.
No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
–Margaret Atwood, The Moment (1995)
I came across this poem the other day from author Margaret Atwood of The Handmaid’s Tale fame. It reminded me of my own relationship with the land on which we live. We’ve lived in our very humble little home here for about thirty years now, tucked away in the edge of our forest.
There I go, saying our forest.
Time has taught me the same lesson that Atwood stresses in her poem, that we are mere fortunate and temporary occupants.
We don’t own this land. After thirty years, it owns us.
When we were building our home, still under the misconception of ownership, we took from the land freely. I spent weeks cutting down the white pines that occupied the space where we envisioned our little cabin. I would cut them into lengths just small enough where I could drag them out and their limbs of the clearing for our home.
Man, I am tired right now just thinking about the effort I expended back then, more than a half lifetime ago.
We also sold some of the trees that lived on our hillside to finance our building. A logger came in and took about a hundred trees, all beautiful older oaks, maples, beech, and others. It hurt even then and bothers me still, but we saw it as a means to an end a sacrifice that needed to be made.
A few years ago, a logger who was culling trees on a neighboring lot asked if we would like to have him look over our property. He marched around marking all the grandest and most regal trees, many of which I had formed a personal attachment to in the years when my first studio had been up amidst these trees.
It was when I saw him put a big chalk X on a big oak that stood at the bend of the path to my old studio, I instantly knew that I would never agree to have someone come in again. The forest had already given me all I needed, had allowed me to take from it.
It was now my responsibility to repay that kindness.
That has been my attitude for many years now. We don’t own this forest. We are its caretakers and protectors, grateful for it allowing us to live amongst its wildness.
Oh, we’ve had to periodically have tree guys come in to cut down a few very large trees that were threatening to fall on both our home and this studio. They were decisions we did not take lightly, agonizing over each tree that had to be cut. And recently the electric company sent in loggers to cut back trees that had grown under and over their lines on the property. I felt sick after they left, feeling as though I had somehow betrayed the forest, even though it was beyond my ability to stop them from doing their job.
Even as I write, I can see a few big white pines about 50 feet from the studio that would easily destroy this space when and if they ever tumble over. The woodpecker holes in some of their trunks make me a bit concerned. I sometimes feel like someone living on the edge of a volcano, waiting for the next eruption.
Maybe it is a bit foolish, but I have the feeling that since I have taken on the role of the warden and protector for this patch of woods, the forest will reciprocate and try to protect us to the extent it can.
I sure hope so.
Superstitiously, I am a bit more worried now that I have put this out there. I guess each of us has to live with the beliefs we hold. Fingers crossed.
Here’s another song from Ren with the Big Push that I feel captures the spirit of this post. This is their cover of Praise You from Fatboy Slim. Good stuff.
Now, if you will, the forest has requested that I tell you to git.
Hey, I just work here and do what I am told…