I heard a segment on NPR not long ago about the increasing homogeneity of cities and towns in the U.S. Where cities and towns once had personalities characterized by particular cultural, linguistic, culinary, and architechtural elements, now there is an ever-increasing trend toward suburban developments, strip malls, and franchise food. Toward the end of the segment the author made a remark I'll paraphrase, rather than quote. He said, in essence, that a place isn't really a place until it has a poet. He clarified saying that he doesn't just mean this in the literal sense, but also in the larger sense; that it posesses regional particularity--qualities that you can't find in quite that same form someplace else.
I had the amazing gift, these last 7 days, of being able to visit San Luis Obispo, California, the town where I lived the first 22 years of my life. I had not been back for 13 years. Since I flew in to Los Angeles and drove up the coast and back, I had hours to just let the landscape wash over me. This landscape that I had taken for granted as a younger person now held me in an overwhelming sense of captivated awe. I couldn't stop noticing the subtle golden hues and varied textures of the hills, the gentle way the waves turned to white foam as they met the shore, unfolding themselves at the foot of the jagged cliffs that rose in front of them. I found myself taking huge deep breaths, hoping to be utterly present with all of my senses so that the landscape, and the memory, would not only be a memory, but a transfusion...a permanent part of the fabric of my being.
I spent the first two days in SLO just walking all over downtown with no itinerary or particular expectations. Just my camera and my flip flops. What started as a visual journey, quickly became an olfactory one. Everywhere I walked I smelled the Jasmyne. I don't remember ever noticing it before. But as soon as it's sweet, rich aroma caught my attention, memories I had stored away in some dormant part of my consciousness just flooded my mind. I remembered every side street, and recalled every storefront's former incarnation. As I walked on rocks accross San Luis Creek, I could picture myself with childhood friends, laughing as we tried not to fall in. As I passed the little Sidewalk Market I could picture my ten-year old self in there buying a Snickers and a Dr. Pepper before youth group. As I walked through the crowds on Higuera St. for Farmer's Market, the smell of BBQ and garlic bread was a time machine. I remembered many fun nights sitting on a curb, eating my ribs and laughing with my friends. Studying literature, one of the profound truths I learned is that time is not linear. The fabric of our memory gets knit together and rewoven again and again. In an instant, a taste, a smell, or a particular place can transport us back in time. Sometimes that journey can be painful. Other times, like this week for me, can be nothing less than healing and transformative. The particular cultural personality of SLO just wrapped it's arms around my soul and held me tight. It spoke the kind of welcome home to my spirit like that of a doating grandmother who cooks up a feast of familiar favorites and scoops up her grandchild saying, "My precious! Oh how I have missed you!"
Each of these moments are poems to me. My childhood home is forever part of me and I am forever part of it because of the poems it has inscribed on my heart, and the way those poems have directed me to live my life. As I reflect on my trip, though, I have decided that there is not only a poetry of place, so to speak. There is a poetry of friendship. Even beyond the geography of place is the transcendent geography of friendship. I spent time with several people, all of whom were very close friends, and each of whom I had not seen for over a decade. I hoped ahead of time that it wouldn't be awkward or forced. Every single encounter was transcendent. We talked, shared stories, laughed, and caught up about our families and lives as if no time at all had passed. And yet the time that had passed made it that much deeper--a kind of full-circle encounter where the past merged with the present, making all of it more meaningful.
San Luis Obispo is definately a place with a poet. William Wordsworth said that poetry is "the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility." This week my cup has been running over with the "spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions". From the authentic, generous, and thoughtful encounters with wonderful friends who remind me of who I am at my best, to a landscape that cherishes and nurtures beauty and a relaxed, open sensibility, I have been given a precious gift--a gift that has nothing to do with material things, and everything to do with love. I love my hometown, and I love the people in my life who have written, and continue to write beautiful poems on my heart.
