place and self

In her response to a comment I made on her blog, Allison asks “How about you, what places have shaped your sense of self?”

There are three places that have shaped me, two are houses from my childhood and one is our Michigan farmlet. As you’ll see, I am a child of privilege…

My family home outside Philadelphia was a rambling ivy-covered house with cool lawns and in summer a riot of flowers (my mother was an avid gardener). The house was full of books (we had no TV). My parents did not believe in sending children to lots of scheduled activities, so I ran pretty much wild and spent a lot of time making fires, climbing trees, and playing make believe.

We also had a summer home on an island in Naragansett Bay in Rhode Island, a place with rocky beaches, an archipelago of tiny islands, and cliffs against which the Atlantic swell smashed itself. I spent every summer on the shore or in small boats, mostly by myself or with a friend, fishing, sailing, or beach-combing (once we found a torpedo!), and playing with gunpowder (fire crackers, rockets).

Our old farmhouse in Michigan is cluttered by animals (cats, dogs) and artwork. Perhaps because my wife is an artist, every wall and shelf is covered in art, Indigenous masks, contemporary oil paintings, prints, sculptures, and ceramics. Until recently, it was also filled with adolescent children and their clutter (board games, electronics projects, soccer shoes, origami). Our house has been compared by some to “The Burrow” in Harry Potter.