The Solace of Open Spaces

After reading Gretel Ehrlich's "The Solace of Open Spaces," I found myself rethinking the West.  Ehrlich took me to a place that I didn't realize existed.  I've never really thought about the west, let alone Wyoming, being such an open and stagnant place, as if the people there are stuck in the past (cowboys and herders).  She describes the land so beautifully though, which makes me want to go there.  The whole idea of slowing down and meshing with the land is so inviting.  "Despite the desolate look, there's a coziness to living in this state," Ehrlich says.  Getting out of the overpopulated cities and suburbs would be a rewarding experience where I could lose myself and possibly find something through the natural, rugged world of Wyoming.

At the beginning of her essay, "The Solace of Open Spaces," Ehrlich says that the name Wyoming comes from an Indian word meaning 'at the great plains.'  This instantly contradicts the land, which is "valleys, great arid valleys, sixteen hundred square miles, with the horizon bending up on all sides into mountain ranges."  This kind of sets the tone for her connections between nature and culture.  She says, "Most of Wyoming has a 'lean-to' look."  The dugouts, low sheds and log cabins are fitting for the harsh land.  Ehrlich states that sagebrush covers 58,000 miles of Wyoming, while the largest city has a population of fifty thousand.  The sagebrush takes up more space than the people.  This is a small example displaying the impact of nature on the people and not vise-versa.

"And despite the physical separation, people stay in touch, often driving two or three hours to another ranch for dinner."  Ehrlich begins to touch on the loneliness that many of the people in Wyoming encounter.  Like the desolate land, people are a scarcity.  To keep their sanity, people sacrifice several hours to journey for a brief moment of company.  Ehrlich makes two comments on isolation that say a lot about the people who live there.  "To emerge from isolation can be disorienting."  When people do have to rejoin a populated area, they are out of their element; they become uncomfortable and awkward.  "Things happen suddenly in Wyoming, the change of seasons and weather; for people, the violent swings in and out of isolation."

Ehrlich reflects on page five with a lyrical description of one's life.  Instead of a series of dramatic events, a person's life is a "slow accumulation of days, seasons, years, fleshed out by the generational weight of one's family and anchored by a land-bound sense of place."  The culture of Wyoming is this whole idea. The meticulous hand is needed to live in a place like this.  Great accomplishments or terrible failures do not hold a life, but instead becoming a complete part of the place, the land, manifests a person's life.

The character of the people is brought out through Ehrlich's descriptions.  The people are very proud of their land and, although may seem rough and rugged, are tender hearted.  When telling the story of her friend Cliff, who cut off half his foot, I could not believe her words.  The man was more worried about the cows getting out than his life.  With the amount of blood he was losing, he could have easily died.  But the cows, the land, are these people's life support.  They farm and herd.  Because of their isolation, they are very intimate with the animals and the land.  Losing any piece of those things would be more devastating than losing a foot.

In my hometown, I feel the complete opposite of those in Wyoming.  It is a completely different world.  Where they embrace the natural world and make it a part of their culture, we go against it.  The culture I live in is concerned with taking up space; building more to accommodate the ever growing population.  I'm not sure what else this area could do, though.  Because Wyoming is less populated, there is open space, while here we have to continue to locate even the smallest space for people or businesses to thrive.  Our connection with nature is slowly disappearing, in most part, because we do not live off the land like the westerners.  I am really having a difficult time deciding why or what has contributed to the development of this culture.  Maybe it's only a matter of time before places like Wyoming undergo a transformation into a less nature-dominated and isolated lifestyle.