*
This week, I wanted to be able to narrate my own story from Price's question, "who encounters what nature where?" How can I, stepping from the threshold of my door, encounter the spectacle in the previous section? Why can I, looking past that tree, see the whole of downtown Morgantown spread below me? Who am I in the context of what nature I experience?
The first segment of this story I will call My Life. This segment includes my own history, and how it is I ended up on this particular hillside, this plot of land.
For brevity's sake, I will begin from the end of my undergraduate career, with this brief informational aside: I am a white heterosexual male, adopted on my step-mother's side, an only child, brought up in a middle class home (though my parents are now upper-middle class), son of a transsexual mother (post-op).
After completing my undergraduate degree in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, I moved from my dorm room into town, where I continued to work at the pizza place I worked at during school, Scotty's Pizza, as a delivery driver. My apartment-house in Waynesburg had three apartments, each one floor of a home. My apartment was at the top. This studio apartment was very run down. The window fixtures were crumbling, the carpet was stained, linoleum tarnished. I paid $300 a month for it, and I loved it, because it was the first place I paid for and maintained on my own.
A year after I graduated, my girlfriend, who I met during college, completed her nursing degree. It was also upon her graduation that I was accepted into Chatham for my graduate degree. We both lived in my apartment for the summer, while she studied for her West Virginia nursing license test, and I prepared for school.
When Jenna became licensed, began working at Ruby Memorial in Morgantown, and I started school, we decided it would be better to live somewhere nicer, and closer to Jenna's job. We decided upon the apartment we live in now, in Morgantown's South Park Village, because not only is it priced competitively (splitting the bill, it is the same as what I was paying in Waynesburg), but it also feels more like a home than any of the other apartments in Morgantown that we could find.
The next segment of this story will be called The History of South Hills Village. This segment begins at the beginning of the 20th century.
Originally farmland, South Hills Village was kept by a few brave, adept farmers. This hillside is steep.
It was one of the first neighborhoods in Morgantown to become a suburb. The homes built onto the hillside were built for upper-middle class, in the Post-Victorian architectural style. Homes were built close together, one above the next, running from south to north up the hillside. To enter South Park, you must cross Decker's Creek, a dividing mark used as the neighborhoods border.
South Park today continues to attract families in the upper-middle class, though homes have been rented out, largely to meet the huge need of West Virginia University students.
The final segment I'll call Intersection. In this segment, I explore how my history and South Park's history coincide, and how it is that I can walk outside to an oak full of birdsong.
I don't have to have grown up here to feel it--when I look out over the hillside, it engenders in me a respect for the natural habitat I occupy. How could I not feel this, when to get anywhere, I must put on hiking shoes? Or when driving, my car struggles, my ears pop, breaths shorten.
Coming to this hillside has been nothing but a blessing in my life. I hope that my occupation has somehow been a blessing to the life on this hillside also. Though I've killed my share of stinkbugs, I hope that my gentle attentiveness has promoted life more than it has squandered. I come from a background of privilege, which makes me more prone to overlooking what ways I am privileged; however, through my close observation of nature, my writing, and my scholarship, I have begun a life in step with the nature around me, begun to think about my history, and how it affects the nature around me.
*
The first segment of this story I will call My Life. This segment includes my own history, and how it is I ended up on this particular hillside, this plot of land.
For brevity's sake, I will begin from the end of my undergraduate career, with this brief informational aside: I am a white heterosexual male, adopted on my step-mother's side, an only child, brought up in a middle class home (though my parents are now upper-middle class), son of a transsexual mother (post-op).
After completing my undergraduate degree in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, I moved from my dorm room into town, where I continued to work at the pizza place I worked at during school, Scotty's Pizza, as a delivery driver. My apartment-house in Waynesburg had three apartments, each one floor of a home. My apartment was at the top. This studio apartment was very run down. The window fixtures were crumbling, the carpet was stained, linoleum tarnished. I paid $300 a month for it, and I loved it, because it was the first place I paid for and maintained on my own.
A year after I graduated, my girlfriend, who I met during college, completed her nursing degree. It was also upon her graduation that I was accepted into Chatham for my graduate degree. We both lived in my apartment for the summer, while she studied for her West Virginia nursing license test, and I prepared for school.
When Jenna became licensed, began working at Ruby Memorial in Morgantown, and I started school, we decided it would be better to live somewhere nicer, and closer to Jenna's job. We decided upon the apartment we live in now, in Morgantown's South Park Village, because not only is it priced competitively (splitting the bill, it is the same as what I was paying in Waynesburg), but it also feels more like a home than any of the other apartments in Morgantown that we could find.
*
The next segment of this story will be called The History of South Hills Village. This segment begins at the beginning of the 20th century.
Originally farmland, South Hills Village was kept by a few brave, adept farmers. This hillside is steep.
It was one of the first neighborhoods in Morgantown to become a suburb. The homes built onto the hillside were built for upper-middle class, in the Post-Victorian architectural style. Homes were built close together, one above the next, running from south to north up the hillside. To enter South Park, you must cross Decker's Creek, a dividing mark used as the neighborhoods border.
South Park today continues to attract families in the upper-middle class, though homes have been rented out, largely to meet the huge need of West Virginia University students.
*
The final segment I'll call Intersection. In this segment, I explore how my history and South Park's history coincide, and how it is that I can walk outside to an oak full of birdsong.
I don't have to have grown up here to feel it--when I look out over the hillside, it engenders in me a respect for the natural habitat I occupy. How could I not feel this, when to get anywhere, I must put on hiking shoes? Or when driving, my car struggles, my ears pop, breaths shorten.
Coming to this hillside has been nothing but a blessing in my life. I hope that my occupation has somehow been a blessing to the life on this hillside also. Though I've killed my share of stinkbugs, I hope that my gentle attentiveness has promoted life more than it has squandered. I come from a background of privilege, which makes me more prone to overlooking what ways I am privileged; however, through my close observation of nature, my writing, and my scholarship, I have begun a life in step with the nature around me, begun to think about my history, and how it affects the nature around me.
Ian, reading through your different blog posts, and having the privilege of reading your final piece I have to say: I seriously admire your ability, as well as your creativity to experiment with different forms. Each one adds something new as well as a level of depth to your work (and your blog), and it's interesting to see how each form you use influences/interacts with your subjects. There is an honesty especially in this piece, and a demonstration of your curiosity and your thirst for things. It's been compelling seeing your voice shift and mold to different forms. Your use of many different (and often times new) ways to write about things makes your subjects come to life so much more and makes your work delightfully unpredictable.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate how you've taken Price's question to heart here and are considering how you've been shaped by the places and landscapes that hold meaning for you.
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