Falling for Barry Lopez #2
June 18, 2010 
As I mentioned in my last post (June 15), I’m reading a collection of writings by Barry Lopez, called Vintage Lopez. Within that collection, in an essay called “Landscape and Narrative,” Lopez opines that the “shape and character” of a person’s thinking “are deeply influenced by…the patterns one observes in nature—the intricate history of one’s life in the land, even a life in the city, where wind, the chirp of birds, the line of a falling leaf, are known.” So that in time, the “interior landscape responds to the character and subtlety of an exterior landscape; the shape of the individual mind is affected by land as it is by genes.”
I have always thought of this relationship between my mind and my natural environment as voluntary. As my regular readers know, on weekday mornings, I power walk along the bike path that traces the edge of Lake Michigan on the north side of Chicago. It’s a joy to watch the daily and seasonal changes in the lakeside environment, but I feel I’m the only lakefront observer among the early morning walkers, joggers, and bikers.
On mornings when the waning, gibbous moon hangs low in the sky, I am amazed I’m the only one who can’t take her eyes off the sight. When winter gives way to spring, and dawn occurs while I’m walking, it’s an effort to pull my gaze from the eastern horizon so I won’t wander into oncoming bike and foot traffic, but no one else seems to be having this problem. As birdsong greets the melting of winter and burgeoning of spring, I resent the roar of mowers that no one else seems to notice.
And yet, on the first warm days in spring, the city people arrive outdoors in droves. Spring clothes and sandals appear, and sidewalk cafes rapidly become crowded. Picnic food and gear sell out at the local market. So other people may be attending in different ways to various aspects of the environment. But they all seem to crave a connection with the natural world. So Lopez seems to be on to something. What do you think?
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