One of the themes of this collection of notes is a sense of place. I’m interested in how some people develop a sense of being part of a place while others seem to have lost it.
The essayist Scott Russell Sanders said that when he thinks of the cosmos, it seems more like a mind than a collection of material objects.
His line came back to me when I went fishing. I first went to an enormous store, which had myriad material objects, including some fishing lures I wanted. When I got to the river, it didn’t feel like big collection of objects. It seemed less like a store than a home — a place to live that was big enough for countless plants and animals, including me.
Sanders said we have a longing to be at home. He said:
I aspire to become an inhabitant, one who knows and honors the land.
I like that word inhabitant. I like thinking of the cosmos as a place to live — not just a place to conduct some business.
• Scott Russell Sanders, Staying Put; Boston: Beacon Press, 1993, p. xiii.
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