Journey in Place, 2024

A Healing Journey and Time to Remember

For the last few months, I’ve attended classes with my favorite author, Janisse Ray, who publishes The Rhizosphere and Trackless Wild here on Substack. If you are seeking to explore a unique place dear to you this year, consider signing up for a year-long subscription to Trackless Wild. At that blog, Janisse is crafting 52 weekly lessons about awareness of place and encouraging members to write on the topic. At the end of the year, she will turn these posts into a 52-chapter book and mail one to each subscriber. I think it’s a brilliant model, both as a teacher and as a writer. I have several Georgia friends taking the journey with me.

My recent classes with Janisse include a 5-week session on Earth Grief and a 10-week session on memoir. I am currently taking a 5-week session on Nature Journaling that incorporates short art lessons. It overlaps with the beginning of Journey in Place. Here I sit, at the nexus of memoir, environmental issues, drawing and writing about nature, and intimately studying place. Reflecting on seven decades of life and considering my history and legacy, I remember many meaningful places. This is part of my journey to heal, create, and teach by writing. I am so grateful for this gift Janisse has offered us. These teachings will help me remember those things I hold dear to integrate the past with the present moment. I can then process them more deeply while becoming more creative with my art. I hope to share this with you, my readers.

Broad River Pastures in Elberton, Georgia, our sustainable eco-farm specializing in rare heritage livestock

Drone Photo by Kiley Aguar January 10, 2018

One beginning exercise suggested listing twenty places meaningful to the writer. This could be as small as a room or as large as a state or country. I chose places meaningful to me at the beginning of my memories and the most recent. Those in the middle that I omitted are related to college, teaching elementary school, two divorces, and raising my only child. Those days were formative, of course, but were not times when I was expressing myself fully and living my passion. I knew who I was as a young girl but had no agency. As a teenage bride, a college student for a combined fourteen years, under the thumb of principals, state and district rules, and a single mother, I was under much pressure to do what I was told. I did what I needed to do to provide for my family and survive. I did not know who I was or my role in the world.

I added notes to my list to remind me of details for possible future stories. My memories come and go. I need to grab them when I can. Writing is messy.

Hydrangea quercifolia, or Oakleaf Hydrangea beside my favorite Quercus alba, or White Oak, in my yard

Unknown spider on Hexastylis arifolia, also known as Wild Ginger (not a ginger) or Little Brown Jug, in my yard

I look forward to exploring these places with you over the next 12 months. I live in a beautiful space that suits me at this unique time. I feel that I’m coming full circle from the little girl playing in her yard and hiking in the woods to an elder in this community I’ve had ties to for over fifty years, living her best life among animals, friends, family, and wildlife.

I will claim the space (or spaces) that own me and describe it (or them) in some detail. Stay tuned!