I just finished a book called The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich, a vivid collection of essays exploring the crooked path of her unexpected life — from a New York City Filmmaker to a Wyoming ranch hand. Something in Wyoming gripped her, and she spends the whole book trying to describe what it is, from the landscape in all its elements of rock and range and wind, to the people living in their individual complexities, sometimes far removed from the story of The West that Hollywood has mythicized.
Wyoming is not West Virginia, but I found I couldn’t help myself from feeling as though she was describing pieces of my life. When I first decided to move down here from Michigan, many of the people I told where I was going responded with reductive comments that I now understand serve to reinforce the stereotype of Appalachia and her people – the story that Hollywood tells us and codified. “Watch out for banjos in the woods!”
It was unsettling. I had read through the website of my prospective job and found nothing but positive momentum towards a stronger food-system; the kind of work that was interesting to me professionally. My interview was no different. As I started reading about the town I might live in, I became even more excited— this was a place where not only could I have access to great natural beauty, but might find good people. The way people talked about West Virginia made me realize I was moving to a place that was likely misunderstood. And not just misunderstood, but complicated. Ehrlich writes about the layers of living in Wyoming:
“People here still feel pride because they live in such a harsh place, part of the glamorous cowboy past…”
“One of the myths about the West is its portrayal as “a boy’s world,” but the women I met – descendants of outlaws, homesteaders, ranchers, and Mormon pioneers — were as tough and capable as the men were softhearted.”
“The iconic myth surrounding [the cowboy] is built on American notions of heroism: the index of a man’s value as measured in physical courage. Such ideas have perverted manliness into a self-absorbed race for cheap thrills. In a rancher’s world, courage has less to do with facing danger than with acting spontaneously — usually on behalf of an animal or another rider.”
When talking about a place that is not wholly known, there is a tendency to exaggerate, to reduce, to simplify, to leave things out. I’ve been here 8 months and feel like I’m just starting to scratch the surface of knowing. And thankfully, my work allows me the ability to engage with people through food, which, among other things, is a way to start building a common set of shared experiences. Break the bread, share the meal, pass the pitcher. If it’s polarizing, you’re probably doing it wrong.
I had my own set of stereotypes for myself when I moved down here. I imagined myself out in the woods, learning the names of the plants, waking up early and trying to meditate mindfully over a bowl of scalding broth. I imagined exploring the wilderness and my own writing in a way that some of my favorite authors had done. Maybe I’d learn to chop some wood, build a fire, tie a knot. I thought I wanted these things – I thought I was putting myself in a place where this person I thought I wanted to be would have no choice but to appear, to break through my own tightened skin. It didn’t work. But I think I am starting to crack the code for being happy here.
“Living well here has always been the art of making do in emotional as well as material ways. Traditionally, at least, ranch life has gone against materialism and has stood for the small achievements of the human conjoined with the animal, and the simpler pleasures — like listening to the radio at night or picking out constellations. The toughness I was learning was not a martyred doggedness, a dumb heroism, but the art of accommodation. I thought: to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce.”
What does West Virginia offer? Paradoxically, both space and closeness. Wilderness and expanse ignites my desire for connection. Sitting in my living room right now I can hear crickets and frogs, but when there was an art show in Fayetteville in May, 150+ people showed up—it was the only game in town. There is the opportunity to create what you need, a frontier that was not accessible to me in a city that seemed to be running like a top that had been set spinning long ago by some all-powerful force. Here, more than anywhere else I’ve been, I feel as though I am part of a larger but still visible whole. Professionally, yes, but also just living and being myself.
I went back to Michigan recently to visit my family, and found that my perception of what a vacation should be had shifted. I used to crave natural beauty, but now I can’t avoid it — just the other day, at twilight, I drove on the interstate back to Fayetteville from Charleston after a day of rain and around every tight turn there was a newly formed cloud between mountains that looked like an ethereal ceiling. Back in the mitten it was truly “vacation” when I was with my sisters, my family, my friends. We went up to Sleeping Bear Dunes, but it didn’t really matter.
I’ve decided to stay here, at my current job as an AmeriCorps VISTA, for another year. When I tell people this, they say, “So you’re loving it!” but I think it’s a little more grey. Living here has not been easy, but I believe it has been good for me.
“At the point of friction, a generosity occurs. The transition to autumn is a ritual like that: heat and cold alternate in a staccato rhythm. The magnetizing force of summer reverses itself so that every airplane flying over me seems to be going away. Heat lightning washes over and under clouds until their coolness drops down to us and then flotillas of storms bound through us as though riding the spring legs of a deer. I feel both emptied and brimming over.”
Cultivate Diete 