Places Moving Places
I left my heart in San Francisco, or some other place, we say to provide a visual metaphor for our longings about place, but what happens when a place leaves itself in another place?
We think a lot about people meeting each other. I introduce Sally to Jim and Donald Trump meets Kim Jong Un. Each introduction could cause friction and fall out. But do we think much about what happens when places meet each other? All over the west are the craters, erratics, eruptions, fumeroles and faults of places that collided with other places. They challenge our concept of place.
Giant explosions in Wyoming spewed ash that made its way to Texas, Iowa and the Gulf of Mexico. Geologists measure the volume of ash that erupted 2.1 million years ago from Yellowstone National Park was sufficient to cover the state of New York to a depth of 58 feet.
Sometimes even places pick up and go to other places. When the shoulders of a giant submerged slab shove against a small village in an instant one place has transformed to another.
How many times do we experience a place that came from some place else? The geology of places fills me with amazement. It makes me wonder what gives us the conceit that we may have a sense of place? What is this place?
Even rocks move around. The world invites us to examine places from so many angles. Human activity often forms the entire narrative, but there is more. How many places are beneath my feet in this place?
