Late Fragment-- Beloved of the Earth

Late Fragment

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Raymond Carver wrote this poem as he was dying of cancer, looking back on his complex life. I read it to my classes on the last day of school each year, because that day is a little death in our lives, as the  classroom community falls away. I have painted it on boards to hang in the back garden, to remind us all of what is important. And, while I was traveling this summer, I was haunted by the words regularly. I am—we are all—beloved on the earth. But, on long drives, I changed one word and realized that we can also be beloved of the earth.

I am from New England. I have lived in Oregon for almost half of my life, but my first connections to place, to geography, to history, to reading the landscape were on the rocky coasts of New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts. I learned the wildflowers, the ridgeline trails, the hidden paths of children through second growth forests. Later, in college, I learned about the architecture, how the landscape influenced development, and the history of the place. I walked for hundreds of miles on roads and trails and beaches. It was—still is—home.

I moved to Oregon looking for something new. For years, the place required me to rethink assumptions about the land, the people, and how we interact with it. I walked on the trails, but the wilderness was reluctant to let me enter. Perhaps it doubted my commitment; perhaps I had not moved far enough in, away from roads and traffic.   Over time—ten, fifteen years—I learned a second landscape. I planted gardens that grew as well as my previous New England jungles once I acquired  the local tricks of water and mulch. I identified wildflowers and  where to look for each in the springtime. I adjusted to the rhythm of the weather, the long grey winters, the golden late summers. I sat by mountain lakes in silence, leaning on my backpack, considering the universe.  One day, the landscape let me in. It happened so slowly that I do not remember the moment, only an awareness that I was on the other side.

And so, this summer, I realized that I am beloved of the Earth, as well. I am blessed with the ability to be at home, in a deep and thoughtful way, in two landscapes, not just one. This is a gift. I have one foot in the rocky waters of New England, the other on the lava trails of the Pacific Northwest, the Willamette Valley. Home.