Rooting

Despite wanting the freedom to always take off for somewhere else, I am drawn to people who live rooted to a place—homesteaders, farmers, artists and writers who stay in their private, secluded homes to chip away at their craft. I don’t think what attracts me is their making a home in one place but the ease with which they seem connected to the physicality of their environment. This connection then shapes the meaning and purpose of their lives.

Sometimes I think of modern society as floating. Regardless of whether or not we live in a city or how much digital food we consume, a level of frantic search and consumption persists in the way we live—always trying to fill up our time and spaces. There is not enough time nor is enough time or attention given for our feet to touch the ground. It is no wonder we feel perpetually out of breath. Living in this kind of pace, I ask myself how to make it all slow, simple, and in tune with the space that my body inhabits. 

There is fearlessness in constant movement but there is also fearlessness in settling and mucking about. It requires not running away. It requires a concentration and a devotion to the connection that one has forged between one’s personal evolution and the seemingly same but actually ever-changing physical environment. The ease that seems to exist is likely a byproduct of that effort.