Landscape as Home

On knowing a place deeply and feeling untethered.

A linocut that I made of the view from the back window of my old home.

In January we were told we had to leave our home. We unexpectedly had to leave a place we had come to know intimately, having moved just before lockdown. Through lockdown it was as far as I could go, a consistency between two houses when we moved across the street. It is nowhere near where I grew up, nor did I go to university nearby, so it is a place I have come to know on my own terms. Whilst I have a deep love for the wide landscapes of Dartmoor and the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, this small spot on the edge of a town in North Yorkshire is somewhere that adopted me during the strange early years of the pandemic, when all my family and the landscapes that raised me were far away. In the following months I have found myself thinking about ideas of home, what home means to me. I cannot, however, think of what home means to me without acknowledging those without one, be it those who have been forced to leave their homelands, those who have had theirs bombed, those failed by a system who values certain homes over others. Home is not just a roof over your head but the land that forms part of your identity. The image of a Palestinian woman holding onto an olive tree to try and prevent it being destroyed comes to mind. Not only is this tree a livelihood but a central part of Palestinian identity and heritage. We, on the other hand, are incredibly lucky. We have moved in with my partner’s dad and are hoping to buy our own house one day. I have multiple homes in a way, in that my family live in the West Country where I was raised but I also have friends and my partner’s family in the North, where I have planted new roots. The peaty waters of Dartmoor pulse through my veins, yet I have also been embraced by the limestone crags of the Yorkshire Dales and the icy waters of the North Sea. However, the experience of suddenly losing a home has still made me feel untethered and vulnerable. I felt a deep sadness at having to be away from somewhere I had woven myself into. Connections to place are integral to our experiences.

I have written before about my habit of naming places, mapping my experiences onto the land. I have my own map in my head of the land near my old house. The Swallow Field where I go if I have heard of sightings from friends and family. I will always see a swallow there when they arrive. In lockdown, I would run to the stile on the edge of the field, and sit there for a moment, a hidden place to be alone. The fields near me tend to be named for birds that I see there often. The Red Kite Field, the Crow Field, the Heron Field. There are places nearby that already have names with this sort of reasoning behind them. Birk Crag, for instance, comes from the birches that line the rocky banks. There is the Red Gate, where I will walk to in evenings, often during golden hour to catch the last sunlight of the day. I picked blackberries from the hedge by it for crumble, listened to the great tits and robins chattering away. The Sycamore by the beck that I always say hello to, placing my hand on the bark. The spot I know I will find snowdrops every January, or the grass by the roadside where there will be, without fail, a carpet of crocuses in late February. The Walnut Tree by Oak Beck I would sit under and read my book in the summer. I make my own small marks on the landscape, my footsteps contributing to the Desire Line (the way over the grass towards the shops).

I found myself drawn, as I often do, to old maps of the area I lived, tracing the layers of history I walked on. Finding names lost on newer maps, mapping my own names onto them. From the back room we could hear an A road which runs along the route of an old salt road and onwards along old Roman roads. Nearby, the Harrogate Hoard was found which included objects from places including Samarkand in present-day Uzbekistan, North Africa, Afghanistan, Russia, Ireland, Scandinavia, and continental Europe. On the banks of Oak Beck, we have found our own hoards, many old fragments of pottery, lost or discarded by those who came before. A tiny ceramic doll’s torso, a piece from a James Keiller and Sons Dundee Marmalade jar and pieces of clay pipe. Fragments of stories and lives amongst the river pebbles. I also became interested in gathering writing about my local area. At the library I find a book of poems named after one of the local busses by local poet Caroline Matusiak, and I read Rob Cowan’s poetry featuring Ilkley Moor, seeing these places through the eyes of others.

When you get to know a place like this you notice the subtleties of the seasonal changes. Trees I have watched change with the seasons from my back window, the blackbirds that return each year to build their nest in the conifer at the end of the garden. The starlings that line the pylon wires overhead, their chattering in the evenings. When the house martins and swifts arrive, they fly above the garden whilst I sow seeds or sit out in the sun. Home to me, then, is the places I know intimately. Landscapes that let me get to know every inch of them and embrace me into their folds. Whilst I feel sad at the loss of one place, I look forward to knowing somewhere new in this way.

Note: I have planted an olive tree in Palestine after writing this essay. You can do so too with Zaytoun or Human Appeal.

Footnotes:

The Heeding by Rob Cowan

The 36 From Ripon by Caroline Matusiak

Home: A Very Short Introduction Michael Allen Fox

The Harrogate/Vale of York Hoard