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Sense Of Place: A Meditation
Jan. 31st, 2024 07:53 amTechnically I was born into the Millennial generational cohort, and one thing I remember vividly about my generation from my youth and young manhood was that people were on the move. In high school, people couldn’t wait to move out of the suburbs and into the big city. In college, people fantasized about moving to the “big city” and striking it rich. Now this was funny, because I grew up in the Minneapolis suburbs, and that metropolitan area is hardly either a small city (it’s the 16th largest in the USA) or a poor one. Well, the way it’s going now, who knows, but for a long time it was a big and prosperous city. Anyway, that’s not the point. In those days, New York or Los Angeles would be the destination of choice and ending up there would’ve been a sign of one’s having “made it”. Maybe Chicago, Boston or the Bay Area might be a suitable substitute, but it was a pretty narrow range of options. The big city on the coasts, or maybe Chicago, was where it was at, and accept no substitute. This was a myth, of course, but it was the goal of many in my generation, and many of them did it – for a time.
I must have been the only one in my group who stayed in the suburbs and had no desire to move to one of those prestigious locales. Perhaps I had an advantage. My parents traveled a lot when they were working, and they took their kids along on these trips. This included international travel. As a result, by the time I reached college age, I had already seen what life was like in other states and even on other continents. So I did not have any illusions of the “grass being greener”. The truth is, and this is probably still unfashionable to say but who cares, there are not a lot of better places in the world than the Midwest. I always felt a deep connection to the land there, even despite the hazards of its many seasons – heat, bugs and crowding in the summertime, frigid and snowy or icy winters. Not many places on earth have such an abundance of wetlands naturally – in much of the USA, lakes are mostly reservoirs – and the rolling meadows and forests of western Hennepin County where I used to roam are among the most beautiful landscapes on earth. And as for amenities, it compared favorably with the best parts of the “prestigious” areas, never mind what people say – that was just marketing.
It’s also the case that any place you spend enough time, it becomes a part of you as much as you are a part of it. This would make sense in light of the traditional view that you, the human, are “mikrokosmos” – a little world, a reflection of the greater cosmos. But it seems that a great deal of humanity was, for some time, missing this primal impulse that tied them to the land. Oswald Spengler would say this was because we live in the age of the “fellaheen” – the uprooted masses of people that form when a high culture transitions into a civilization. They range from the dirt-poor farmer forced off of his land in a third world country to the younger sons of aristocrats who don’t stand to inherit a thing and are forced to strike out on their own. And be it known that these types of people exist in every age, except that in the age of the fellaheen their numbers are much greater and their impact more destabilizing. America in particular was a land shaped by this phenomenon since its inception. But the phenomenon peaked in my lifetime, which makes the Millennials something of a hinge generation, who got to see the optimum of the process and then its decline.
Their dreams were shaped by the unsettled conditions that Western civilization has been in since the dawn of the civilized period in the early 19th century. But I, for whatever reason, did not feel the same calling to wandering and migration as they did. For some reason, the idea of staying in one place appealed to me. If you’re like me, and believe in reincarnation and so on, this might have something to do with past lives and karma. If I recall correctly, in my most recent previous life I was forced out of my own homeland (Nazi Germany) and lived my whole remaining life in another country (the UK) and mostly in one city (London). There are other more personal details I won’t share just now. Anyway, having experienced exile and instability in one life, I suppose that might explain my longing for a home in this one. At the same time, as a Sagittarius, I always have been comfortable on the road, where “home is where you lay your hat” as was the case on my many travels. That’s why I was never averse to moving. But always, the longing for a place to call my own was there. I didn’t share in the typical American idea, especially among Millennials, that one simply must be blown by the winds of fate to another part of the realm in the chasing after money, status and whatever other dream.
In staying in a particular locale, you build up ties to it in your soul. I experienced this in two particular places during my lifetime. The first was the area west of Minneapolis where I grew up. The deciduous forests, lakes and fields of that area still stir fond memories, and I miss dwelling there much more than I thought I would. The other was the central lakes area of Minnesota where my mother grew up. It’s in the transition zone between broadleaf forest and the conifers of the far north, and it is a land of lakes as well, but much more wooded, a mix of pines and maples, drained by rivers. It’s a strange land in that it feels more open and light in the winter, while the dense cover of green makes it a bit dark and mysterious in high summer. I spent countless hours of my life in both of these regions and they made a very strong imprint on me, so much that I don’t think their influence would ever fade even if I would move away and not return. I got much more enjoyment from walking the wooded trails and backstreets of these places than I’d ever have got living in a big city far from the land of my birth where I’d be just another number, another cog in the machine.
So, it must be said, I never wanted to leave where I grew up. It seemed like the central conceit of our age to want to do so, and to chase after a dream, and have it end the way such things usually do (since dreams are hazy and they come to an end) – in disappointment. That was the fate of many who left. Some of my friends were among them. Interestingly, many came back, some after a short time, and some after long absences. However, I was eventually driven out of my homeland by the ravages of time and change. That was in 2021. Increasingly punitive systems of social control had forced the economy into lockdown, and the irresponsible actions of government led to an enormous increase in the cost of living. It would be an understatement to say that the events of the pandemic years were the most disturbing I have seen in my life. It was as if a collective madness had gripped the world and I had been sucked into the epicenter of it. Areas that were historically liberal, like my own homeland, often were among the leaders of irrational, aggressive and punitive government action against the populace, not unlike what I imagined the conditions in Communist China, or the Airstrip One of 1984 infamy might be. I had to get out – and I wasn’t alone. There was quite a migration out of Hennepin County in those days, and it continues to some extent into the present day.
Now I can say that it was the policy that made me leave, but it was just as much the unsustainable rise in the cost of living and the expanding ring of crime in that area. These things had been building even before the pandemic occurred, but they accelerated during that time to an intolerable degree. At the beginning of the 2010s, the Minneapolis area had the amenities of a big city without the big city cost or crowding. All of that has changed by now. It’s not the place it once was, although its natural setting still has the timeless beauty that it always had – where it isn’t chopped down or filled in to make densely packed apartment blocks and cookie-cutter burbclaves, that is. I suppose that must be for somebody, because they’re moving in, but it wasn’t for me. I should point out that I moved only across the St. Croix River, into neighboring Wisconsin. And in some ways, I still feel like a stranger in a strange land here. It is less than an hour’s drive from where I grew up, but it might as well be a different world. There are no wetlands here, apart from rivers and creeks, and the land has a much different hill-and-dale aspect not unlike New England. It’s beautiful in its own way, but I have not yet dwelt here so long that I could properly think of it as home. Nor, given the instability of our times and in my own life, can I be sure I will be so fortunate as to stay long enough that it might one day be home.
This part of the world has always been fascinating. The Minneapolis-St. Paul area sits on the confluence of four rivers – the Mississippi, the Minnesota, the Crow and the St. Croix. The first of those is the great divider of the nation. East of it begins the East, and West of it begins the West. It’s more of a continental divider than the actual divide. Minneapolis is a Western city, and St. Paul is an Eastern city. This is no lie – you can feel it as soon as you explore. The latter has much more of an “old world” feel, right down to its architecture and the rather medieval feeling of certain neighborhoods and the parochial character of its natives. On the Minneapolis end of the river, towns begin to get the “prairie gothic” look, while in the St. Croix valley they have the Yankee look of towns farther east. Not only is the state of Minnesota highly regional, but so is the metropolitan area. I’ve often thought that the districts of large cities in our time are not unlike small regions in themselves – and rightly so, given the aggregations of people living in the same, oftentimes of quite different character than the next suburb over. In any given locale, there is probably a lifetime worth of things to explore and people to meet.
I have therefore made it one of my life’s principles to repudiate the wandering mentality that defined the American people for so long, and my generation in particular. America is not a frontier nation anymore, like it was from the 17th to the 19th centuries, nor is it a strong industrial economy as it was in parts of the 20th, when a young couple could afford a home and family on a single income. This probably means that Americans will start to rediscover the importance of home, family and community, and also that there will be more intergenerational households, and so on. My generation was perhaps the first to see a world in which the wandering mentality did not pay off or in fact became a liability. Maybe I simply had an intuition that it was all an impossible dream and chose not to take part in it from a young age, and instead focus on getting to know and love a place. Now, what I cannot say just now is whether this attitude of mine will allow me to stay in one place, or whether events will impel me to again uproot. Wanderings, as I know well, aren’t always a matter of choice. But sense of place is important, it has been missing from our people for a long time, and wherever I end up, I will try to come to love that place as much as I have all the other places that I’ve given a part of myself to in the past.
I must have been the only one in my group who stayed in the suburbs and had no desire to move to one of those prestigious locales. Perhaps I had an advantage. My parents traveled a lot when they were working, and they took their kids along on these trips. This included international travel. As a result, by the time I reached college age, I had already seen what life was like in other states and even on other continents. So I did not have any illusions of the “grass being greener”. The truth is, and this is probably still unfashionable to say but who cares, there are not a lot of better places in the world than the Midwest. I always felt a deep connection to the land there, even despite the hazards of its many seasons – heat, bugs and crowding in the summertime, frigid and snowy or icy winters. Not many places on earth have such an abundance of wetlands naturally – in much of the USA, lakes are mostly reservoirs – and the rolling meadows and forests of western Hennepin County where I used to roam are among the most beautiful landscapes on earth. And as for amenities, it compared favorably with the best parts of the “prestigious” areas, never mind what people say – that was just marketing.
It’s also the case that any place you spend enough time, it becomes a part of you as much as you are a part of it. This would make sense in light of the traditional view that you, the human, are “mikrokosmos” – a little world, a reflection of the greater cosmos. But it seems that a great deal of humanity was, for some time, missing this primal impulse that tied them to the land. Oswald Spengler would say this was because we live in the age of the “fellaheen” – the uprooted masses of people that form when a high culture transitions into a civilization. They range from the dirt-poor farmer forced off of his land in a third world country to the younger sons of aristocrats who don’t stand to inherit a thing and are forced to strike out on their own. And be it known that these types of people exist in every age, except that in the age of the fellaheen their numbers are much greater and their impact more destabilizing. America in particular was a land shaped by this phenomenon since its inception. But the phenomenon peaked in my lifetime, which makes the Millennials something of a hinge generation, who got to see the optimum of the process and then its decline.
Their dreams were shaped by the unsettled conditions that Western civilization has been in since the dawn of the civilized period in the early 19th century. But I, for whatever reason, did not feel the same calling to wandering and migration as they did. For some reason, the idea of staying in one place appealed to me. If you’re like me, and believe in reincarnation and so on, this might have something to do with past lives and karma. If I recall correctly, in my most recent previous life I was forced out of my own homeland (Nazi Germany) and lived my whole remaining life in another country (the UK) and mostly in one city (London). There are other more personal details I won’t share just now. Anyway, having experienced exile and instability in one life, I suppose that might explain my longing for a home in this one. At the same time, as a Sagittarius, I always have been comfortable on the road, where “home is where you lay your hat” as was the case on my many travels. That’s why I was never averse to moving. But always, the longing for a place to call my own was there. I didn’t share in the typical American idea, especially among Millennials, that one simply must be blown by the winds of fate to another part of the realm in the chasing after money, status and whatever other dream.
In staying in a particular locale, you build up ties to it in your soul. I experienced this in two particular places during my lifetime. The first was the area west of Minneapolis where I grew up. The deciduous forests, lakes and fields of that area still stir fond memories, and I miss dwelling there much more than I thought I would. The other was the central lakes area of Minnesota where my mother grew up. It’s in the transition zone between broadleaf forest and the conifers of the far north, and it is a land of lakes as well, but much more wooded, a mix of pines and maples, drained by rivers. It’s a strange land in that it feels more open and light in the winter, while the dense cover of green makes it a bit dark and mysterious in high summer. I spent countless hours of my life in both of these regions and they made a very strong imprint on me, so much that I don’t think their influence would ever fade even if I would move away and not return. I got much more enjoyment from walking the wooded trails and backstreets of these places than I’d ever have got living in a big city far from the land of my birth where I’d be just another number, another cog in the machine.
So, it must be said, I never wanted to leave where I grew up. It seemed like the central conceit of our age to want to do so, and to chase after a dream, and have it end the way such things usually do (since dreams are hazy and they come to an end) – in disappointment. That was the fate of many who left. Some of my friends were among them. Interestingly, many came back, some after a short time, and some after long absences. However, I was eventually driven out of my homeland by the ravages of time and change. That was in 2021. Increasingly punitive systems of social control had forced the economy into lockdown, and the irresponsible actions of government led to an enormous increase in the cost of living. It would be an understatement to say that the events of the pandemic years were the most disturbing I have seen in my life. It was as if a collective madness had gripped the world and I had been sucked into the epicenter of it. Areas that were historically liberal, like my own homeland, often were among the leaders of irrational, aggressive and punitive government action against the populace, not unlike what I imagined the conditions in Communist China, or the Airstrip One of 1984 infamy might be. I had to get out – and I wasn’t alone. There was quite a migration out of Hennepin County in those days, and it continues to some extent into the present day.
Now I can say that it was the policy that made me leave, but it was just as much the unsustainable rise in the cost of living and the expanding ring of crime in that area. These things had been building even before the pandemic occurred, but they accelerated during that time to an intolerable degree. At the beginning of the 2010s, the Minneapolis area had the amenities of a big city without the big city cost or crowding. All of that has changed by now. It’s not the place it once was, although its natural setting still has the timeless beauty that it always had – where it isn’t chopped down or filled in to make densely packed apartment blocks and cookie-cutter burbclaves, that is. I suppose that must be for somebody, because they’re moving in, but it wasn’t for me. I should point out that I moved only across the St. Croix River, into neighboring Wisconsin. And in some ways, I still feel like a stranger in a strange land here. It is less than an hour’s drive from where I grew up, but it might as well be a different world. There are no wetlands here, apart from rivers and creeks, and the land has a much different hill-and-dale aspect not unlike New England. It’s beautiful in its own way, but I have not yet dwelt here so long that I could properly think of it as home. Nor, given the instability of our times and in my own life, can I be sure I will be so fortunate as to stay long enough that it might one day be home.
This part of the world has always been fascinating. The Minneapolis-St. Paul area sits on the confluence of four rivers – the Mississippi, the Minnesota, the Crow and the St. Croix. The first of those is the great divider of the nation. East of it begins the East, and West of it begins the West. It’s more of a continental divider than the actual divide. Minneapolis is a Western city, and St. Paul is an Eastern city. This is no lie – you can feel it as soon as you explore. The latter has much more of an “old world” feel, right down to its architecture and the rather medieval feeling of certain neighborhoods and the parochial character of its natives. On the Minneapolis end of the river, towns begin to get the “prairie gothic” look, while in the St. Croix valley they have the Yankee look of towns farther east. Not only is the state of Minnesota highly regional, but so is the metropolitan area. I’ve often thought that the districts of large cities in our time are not unlike small regions in themselves – and rightly so, given the aggregations of people living in the same, oftentimes of quite different character than the next suburb over. In any given locale, there is probably a lifetime worth of things to explore and people to meet.
I have therefore made it one of my life’s principles to repudiate the wandering mentality that defined the American people for so long, and my generation in particular. America is not a frontier nation anymore, like it was from the 17th to the 19th centuries, nor is it a strong industrial economy as it was in parts of the 20th, when a young couple could afford a home and family on a single income. This probably means that Americans will start to rediscover the importance of home, family and community, and also that there will be more intergenerational households, and so on. My generation was perhaps the first to see a world in which the wandering mentality did not pay off or in fact became a liability. Maybe I simply had an intuition that it was all an impossible dream and chose not to take part in it from a young age, and instead focus on getting to know and love a place. Now, what I cannot say just now is whether this attitude of mine will allow me to stay in one place, or whether events will impel me to again uproot. Wanderings, as I know well, aren’t always a matter of choice. But sense of place is important, it has been missing from our people for a long time, and wherever I end up, I will try to come to love that place as much as I have all the other places that I’ve given a part of myself to in the past.
