Solastalgia

                

 

 

Location, location, they say. It used to be that a place was just where you were. But anthropologists and environmental educators have elevated the importance of place, letting us know that a person’s home place affects their development and culture. We realize that children especially latch onto the place where they grow up and it affects everything from personality to values and health. That is why we can feel nostalgic for the place of our upbringing, or even solastalgic, which goes beyond homesickness and involves grief for a natural environment that has changed over time. This is what I have. I am and always have been a nature advocate, profoundly influenced by the place where I grew up. For members of the baby boomer generation like myself, as kids we played in nearby fields and forests all day. There was no ecophobia or worry about stranger danger back then. It was how a youngster learned about the world.

The place was Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the early sixties. It was the time before urbanization took over and there were still farms about the countryside, even close to the city. We were more connected to the land back then. We lived in one of the town’s first suburbs, before anyone knew what suburbia was. The subdivision we lived in consisted of parceled-out sections of the old Zinke farm in Wisconsin. The farmhouse still stood at the top of the hill and Grandpa and Grandma Zinke kept a huge colorful garden there.

At the end of the street was an old patch of woods, untouched by any development. This was our secret place to hide out. The naturally growing trees were easy to climb, with limbs all over the place. In the winter, tiny ponds in the woods became skating rinks. In my time amongst the trees, I became an explorer, scientist, and storyteller. It was the beginning of my naturalist career.

An expansive grassy field beckoned directly behind the neighborhood houses. The field was our play area. We ran through acres of grassy meadow and hid from each other below the high grass stems. My older brothers caught overly abundant grasshoppers and brought them back to play with. Meanwhile I would catch all the butterflies I could – monarchs, swallowtails, mourning cloaks and sulphurs. The creatures would be studied, then left to wing away to their homes.

For a journey into nature that had a little help from man’s hand, it was a short bike ride to the nearest county park. Every autumn, flocks of geese and ducks stopped over for supplies on their way south. I’ll never forget the chatter and honks of hundreds of birds which took over the golf course. A number of ponds joined together to make a roundabout ice-skating rink. At the ponds’ edge, we could tiptoe a few feet into the naked woods. In the summer, we fished the ponds with homemade poles. I was always running off to play in wild areas, even small patches of it. Diving into the ditch that separated the neighborhood’s back road in two, I entered a secret world. Tiny snapdragons told me stories of nature, flapping their little mouths as I pinched the back of them.

If the family was driving out of town and heading north in the spring, we would sometimes find wild asparagus growing along the country roadsides. If we could get enough, it was a real treat served with dinner. Wisconsin was big corn-growing country, and the tall crops were everywhere outside the city. No one could resist the temptation to help themselves to a few ears on a late summer’s Sunday drive. Corn on the cob – fresh taste of the farm. On a nice autumn day, it was common for townies to take a drive to gawk at the brilliant fall colors. The southern half of the state boasted maples, ash, oak, and so much more. Leaves were always collected in an assortment of colors and shapes.

There were more trips with the family that took us a little farther afield. In Wisconsin, ‘up north’ means anyplace north of the center of the state. But what it really refers to is a state of mind – out of the city and into the wilderness. ‘Up north’ was a common vacation area and we went there almost every summer. I remember water skiing, horseback riding, fishing, and boat rides.

Other places that I visited in childhood also made an impression on me. I remember both sets of grandparents having wonderful gardens – enchanting places I wanted to recreate in my adult life. There were two public botanical gardens in Milwaukee and we visited them often. Boerner Botanical Garden contained many differently themed landscapes. Here we explored formal gardens and wild, and an entire garden just of roses. Mitchell Park Conservatory, on the other hand, had three different ecological gardens each contained under a temperature-controlled dome.

In elementary school, they took us on field trips to farms just outside of town. Sometimes the farms came to us at the green market. It was outdoors and in the open air, a cornucopia for the senses. Piles and crates-full of produce in all the colors – green, gold, red, orange – seemed to blend together into an unending bounty. My feeling was one of total awe, and always will be. When I got older, I would explore farmer’s markets along the roadsides. When I saw one, it was an obligatory stop to touch base with the folksy, rural element of life. Touching the fresh produce was like touching life. It seemed to revitalize the spirit. Though I never knew anyone who actually grew the vegetables, I became fascinated with the practice and the lifestyle.

Determined to learn how to grow things for myself and maybe even develop a crop that would feed the world, as an altruistic 18-year-old I entered an agricultural college and studied agronomy, or crop science. Strangely enough, I would get a job in the beer industry of all things, searching for a barley strain that would make the best tasting brew. Somewhat disillusioned with the lack of satisfaction that this line of work brought, I briefly took a break. What I really loved was not only the growing of things, but growing things, as in nature. And veering off the agricultural path just a little bit, I returned to college to off a degree in forestry. This, too, left me disillusioned as the industry promoted harvest above care, so on I went to find ways to use both my degrees to better the world. My varied career path took me around the country and with jobs that ranged from produce inspector and park ranger to snake handler and cactus cop.

All throughout my working life, I had hobbies that were connected to my fields of expertise. The most prominent one has been gardening. I’ve been trying to garden for 30 years, and it’s been one long expensive experiment. With two degrees in the plant sciences, I also played with everything that involved plants: growing, collecting seed, creating bouquets, pressing flowers, making garden decorations. And, I wrote – for work and as a freelancer, writing about everything nature-related. For my spouse and I, nature and wildlife watching is our biggest shared hobby, done right in our own yard, which has been certified wildlife approved. Whether it’s a woodpecker, a brilliant sunset, or the aroma of freshly planted herbs, the sensory experiences are a great joy and stress-reliever. Now retired, I am an indentured servant to my garden, still expressing my thoughts through writing. Hopefully I can reach one or two who understand that viridity, the life force, is what we are here to benefit from and complement.

I returned to my Wisconsin home ground a few times over the last several decades and was struck by the changes that have occurred. Urbanization has eliminated the “rural edge” effect and hard-core citification terminates abruptly. All vestiges of farm lots bought up and gone, the homespun culture has gradually transformed into more ephemeral settlings, with tenants tech-savvy but disconnected. My wistful remembering turned to solastalgia, as that place of old had an influence on my career choices, my environmental values, and what I found to be important and what made me happy throughout my life. The feeling extends to my current place of residence as I see it succumb to greed and overpopulation.