My Location

                Gary Snyder’s way of describing his location is very different from what most of us are used to. When Dr. Lennon asked us to keep in mind how we would describe our current location, I got very nervous. I’m still fairly new to Tampa, and am really just here for school. I don’t know anything about my surrounding area except “close to a major road with a small patch of tress nearby.” Though I was initially thankful we didn’t have time to discuss it in class, I ended up thinking harder about what I would have ended up saying.

                Though we discussed the idea that Snyder thinks of manmade structures being “natural”, his description of where he lived focused completely ignored details that we would use to describe our location. Snyder doesn’t give his address or even what town he lives in, but chooses to describe his surroundings. Names that we as humans created are superficial and don’t really describe the place we reside. His description of “on the western slope of the northern Sierra Nevada, in the Yuba River water-shed, north of the south fork at the three-thousand foot elevation, in a community of black oak, incense cedar, madrone, Douglas fir, and ponderosa pine” is so much more beautiful than simply saying “California” could ever be and it really shows his deep appreciation of nature.

                My description of Orlando (what I consider to be my hometown), is one I don’t think could ever live up to Snyder’s. I really admire his love of the natural world, and wish I was able to do the same instead of just appreciating it aesthetically. I find sunsets and oceans beautiful and serene to look at, but it’s not the same as the real joy Snyder would experience. He really respects the natural world on a higher level than most people do, where their definition of “respect” would be “I don’t actively harm the environment.”

                Here is my description however: “I live just an hour away from the ocean, surrounded by thick grass and looming palm trees. Only a hundred feet from sea level, an untouched wood engrosses me, filled with oak, miniature rivers, and wild turkeys.”

                Thinking about my description saddened me a little because my home in Orlando is in a suburb, so a lot of the woods that were once there were cut down so my neighborhood could be developed. It’s also near many popular tourist attractions so much of the natural beauty is ignored or simply doesn’t exist anymore because of all the construction done. I don’t even know too much about Orlando’s forests and wildlife, despite living there for ten years.

                This is basically the only I aspect I miss when I think about where I used to live, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina (in a town named Kill Devil Hills-seriously). People of course lived there, and it was a beach town so there were tourist attractions, but the land had remained untouched for the most part. There were swamps everywhere, everyone fished for their own seafood, animals lived in harmony with their human neighbors, and there was rarely new construction unless it involved renovating an old building or bridge. Snyder has given me motivation to learn more about where I live now, because his approach to understanding a place is really fascinating to me.