When I fly
into a city, what strikes me most are all the straight lines: long grids of
streets and highways bisected at neat 90 degree angles, set with rectangular
buildings, miles of telephone wires and railroad tracks. This
is especially striking in flat terrain, like Phoenix and Houston.
Civil
engineers can feel rightly proud of their profession. They have transformed these landscapes into humanscapes,
capable of providing transportation, communication, electricity, water, and
housing for millions of people.
Alaska, of
course, is not like that. Our land is
too rugged and our population small. Our
biggest city, Anchorage, has a straight grid of streets (numbered and lettered),
but for only about 270,000 people before it runs out of room, between the
mountains and the sea. Because of both
the land and the population outside this one municipality, we have only three
numbered highways. Many of our homes and
communities are accessible only by marine highway (ferries) or, like mine, by small
airplane.
Personally,
I think this is marvelous…
Because
there are no roads or electricity or other humanscape where I live (other than my own habitation structures), I am alert
to the fact that in the biological and botanical world, NOTHING natural is
straight. Everything is curved, and for
practical reasons. Curved surface areas of
leaves and tree trunks receive and shed more sun and precipitation. Mountains are shaped by ice, wind, and rain. Circuitous streams and rivers and bogs capture
and carry more water. Nothing in human
and animal bodies is straight either. Think
of the walnut curves in our brains, or the elliptical nature of our intestines,
not to mention the vascular system.
To me (and I
bet some psychology grad students have documented this), curves are more
calming and attractive than straight lines.
Speaking of
psychology, we use terms like, “Life throws us a curve ball.” We never say that
“Life throws us a line drive.”
I wonder if
physically and psychologically, we are more naturally, positively attuned to
curves than the straight lines in benches, seating arrangements, buildings and roads.
…
When our
float (or ski) plane rises above our lake in the Alaska bush, bearing my
husband, dog, and me to anyplace else, I love looking down from 1200
feet to survey the natural landscape. Because
we have no pollution here, I can see much farther (from the ground or in the
air) than in cities (even from our previous 17th floor condo in a high-rise
in Houston, TX.) Here, I can see the
Alaska Range, with Denali its pinnacle, about 200 miles north. Whether summer green or winter white, every
path of water, every beach, every stand of trees and plant life is sinuous. Every mountain range, too.
As a result,
my eye, like those of search and rescue spotters, is automatically drawn to
those occasions of “what does not fit” in this view. What stands out most is a straight line and
something unnaturally shiny. This is
usually a bit of cabin roof line, flashing in the sun, or the gunnels of
a metal boat or the long edge of a private plane’s wing in glossy yellow or white.
Aloft from
our lake, how long does it take before I
see my first hint of human construction?
After ten minutes, I see a sliver of silver roof line. The roofs
of these older cabins were creatively “shingled” with used fuel oil
containers. The shiny metal was cut,
flattened, and nailed onto wooden roof planks or plywood. Good repurposing.
In twelve
minutes, we peer down at a river lined with cabins set five acres apart on a
bluff. Depending on the fish runs, we
see 6 or 10 motor boats, but none today.
The braided river winds slowly south around sandbars and downed trees,
carrying glacial silt from the Alaska Range to the Cook Inlet. The name is Susitna. In the Athabaskan language, the –na denotes a
river and the –susit apparently refers to the glacial silt
suspended in the river, turning it a milky color.
Over the
ensuing ten minutes, I see increasing indications of population: asphalt roads, wooden telephone poles,
cleared properties populated with vehicles and buildings in various states of
use, repair, and functionality.
We glide
onto a lake adjacent to a major road and taxi to shore. I open the gull wing passenger door, wait for
my husband to stop the engine (which turns off the propeller), and drop down to
the float, scoot under the diagonal struts, pick up the tow line, and jump to
shore, less nimbly, I must admit, than a decade ago.
After we secure
the plane, we venture out to city errands
in a vehicle we store there. For the first time in many months, I open my wallet (often) for services, like a dentist or purchases we cannot grow, like citrus, coffee, and
chocolate, and modern day conveniences that we cannot make, like hoses
and gaskets and coaxial cable. After not thinking about money for many months at home, it seems to me that in a city, that is foremost on my mind.
Even here in
Alaska, with its gorgeous mountains, forests, and streams, my low view along
the road is of really unattractive strip centers and parking lots. My olfactory and auditory senses are assaulted
by the sound and smell of vehicles on the road.
In a doctor’s waiting room or a restaurant, I feel awkward, almost
embarrassed, by how close people are and how we can overhear conversations. But people on the road do not seem to mind these
noises and smells and lack of privacy.
They are used to the population density and its intrusions.
My home is
different.
Here, if I
want to hear a human sound, I have to make it.
Only one other couple lives within many miles of us, and they tend to be
quiet, too.
When I return
home, and walk among the plants and woods of my property, along sinuous (of
course) paths among berry bushes and spruce and birch trees, I notice that I breathe deeper than I do in a city. Partly, this is because everything smells so
good. I inhale whichever berries or
flowers are peaking, as well as the spruce, clover, and sweet grass. And partly. this deep breathing is a sign of
contentment and relaxation.
When people
are stressed out, we tend to breathe more shallowly.
I acknowledge that some urbanites freak out
in nature (we had a dear friend from Mumbai who had a panic attack out here the
first day due to the silence and openness. It was totally unfamiliar. No straight lines. No cars and honking and crowds and the smells that emanate from all of them. She had to fly back to the “big city” of Anchorage the next day and then to a city of many million people that felt more comfortable to her.
Cities with
infrastructure are impressive social and physical constructions where
populations grow and develop culturally significant arts, technologies, and
skills because large populations support specialization. I enjoyed living in cities for decades and,
because I no longer do, I respect all the hidden requirements that make them
work (like sewage and water treatment and electricity, and traffic lights).
But for more than a dozen years, I have chosen
to listen to different sounds, see different lines, smell different
scents. These years living in the
woods have changed me. I have a deep
sense of belonging here that was lacking in all those straight places, that
lead... where?