I been there

A story of one person’s interaction with landscape as place and home

Outside a former copper-mining town in Arizona: I’ve been there. (John Clayton photo)

We had a wonderful informal game, G— and L— and I, back 30 years ago when we were young men who took pleasure in subtle boasting. An observer might have named the game, “I been there.”

L— might start describing the lonely solemnity of a mountain in southeast Oregon, and G— would say, “I've been there.” G— might then describe the vitality of a former copper-mining town in Arizona, and I'd say, “I been there.” I might express an interest in someday visiting a particular valley in British Columbia, and one or both of them would say, “I been there.”

I call it an informal game because there was no scoring (I would have lost, badly). There wasn't even much sense of competition, as we each took delight in each other's accomplishments. It was more like a great tennis volley.

They both drove around the West for work: a land-use planner, a nature writer. I just traveled for fun. As if my life was just prep for this late-night bar game.

In the years since, inspired by their stories, my list of places to see someday has ballooned in scope and specificity, even as I have checked off plenty of items. To be sure, that list was pretty big to begin with. I visited all 50 states by age 24. I'd camped at ridiculously scenic spots on seashores, streamsides, and mountaintops. I'd stayed at rundown hotels where the most salient amenity was a lock. And why? It was just a hobby, a passion. Rather than stamps or baseball cards, I collect landscapes and neighborhoods.

I know people who make such collections through an activity: fish that river, ski that slope, bag that 14er. Sometimes I envy them their focus, the specificity involved in the gear-gathering or the beery conclaves. But my passion is different. I collect the landscapes by walking and driving, sometimes running or snowshoeing. The collections are mostly in my visual memory, in colors and shapes and the ways they come together. But there’s also the feel of the desert sun on my skin, the sound of the crashing waves on the deserted beach, the sweet scent of Russian olive, the layout of that one used bookstore, the weight of humid warmth in the tropical city, or the taste of ground sassafras leaves or Mexican oregano or locally-prevalent bivalves at the hole-in-the-wall restaurants.

I have no illusions that my passions are “better” than others: I am probably more superficial. I just know that these passions are mine.

I know because when my marriage fell apart a decade ago, I wanted to drive to Arizona. I wanted to take an inefficient route through parts of western Colorado that I'd never seen. I wanted a weak winter sun illuminating redrock canyons ponderosa uplands. I wanted to collect these additional landscapes and find myself in them. And then, after a couple of weeks, I wanted to come home.

It's not wanderlust, in other words. I don't feel the need to leave my world behind me, strike out for the territories, find a different place that would be better. I just want to see how the earth folds and crests, how it cradles valleys and breaks for cliffs, how a well-placed red barn brings greater visual satisfaction, how those other songbirds express their particular joy, how all those features fit together. I want to see how that works, from lots of different slants.

Several summers ago, I was part of a volunteer crew helping the Forest Service build a new trail a few miles from my home. Our work skirted some aspen groves, ascended some meadows, topped a small ridgeline—all previously unknown to me. At one point we achieved a panorama to the northeast and I asked my friend R—, “Where's town from here?”

R— paused and then pointed. “Is it maybe tucked under there?”

And suddenly I saw a set of familiar cliffs, a grove of familiar pines, the top of a ridge visible from my living room window—all from an unfamiliar angle. It was the ultimate volley in that old game. I told R— she must be right. Delighted, I realized: “I been there.”

Discussion:

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