In the glazed eyes of society, some places are deemed more valuable than others.
When sacrifices are made — as they too often are — this notion leads to the destruction of locations that are less worthy: The National Parks are preserved, while the great-great-grandparent’s garden is rolled over. What’s often overlooked in these calculations are sentimental values. The relationships we build with locations are valuable because of the meaning they hold and the humanity that manifests when we preserve them.
In his essay “Buckeye” Scott Russel Sanders argues that recording these relationships gives places a particular type of importance. It connects us to the past, to others, and even to the future. In society’s eyes, making these relationships tangible proves their value, and adds to the idea of worth that we painstakingly cling to. Sharing the places that we love, no matter how mundane, reminds us that when you take off the warped glasses of society, no place on Earth has more value than another. Despite the beauty, rarity, recreation, productivity, or otherwise, all places deserve to have their value recognized, even if at first it's difficult to observe.
In an effort of preservation and appreciation, I offer this response to Sanders: A love-laced memory of my childhood, as it unfolded in my grandparent’s backyard, tucked away in the tiny tourist town of North Pole, Alaska.
I crawled into a nylon tent, ignoring grass stains on my knees and brushing the dirt from my bare feet. The world of the tent was yellow and bright, and to my young mind, it was a safe haven. My cousin sat across the tent, on a throne of sleeping bags and blankets, eager to examine the box I brought with me. I had ventured into the depths of our grandparents house to find entertainment for the evening: The board game Sorry! Pokémon edition, which our grandma had found at a yard sale in near perfect condition.
We played into the night, the Alaskan sun lighting the way. Occasionally we would hear the jingle of dog collars, and pause our game hoping to coax the little sausages into the tent. Grandma came out to check on us before bed, wiping the sleep from her face as she meandered into the yard in her nightgown and housecoat.
My cousin works as a bus driver for the school district now, which means she passes Grandma and Pa’s backyard as she drives to and from the high school. She sees the junk piled into one corner of the yard, and the huge conifers, and the garden bed all laid out before the low, tan home. What wasn’t there before, she sees their mobile home, awaiting adventure, and a shining radio tower, and a long-awaited greenhouse that I only know from photos. Sometimes, she can get a glimpse of Grandma in the kitchen, sorting through her morning pills.
Just as we frolicked in Grandma’s backyard then, my cousin’s new children do the same now. She has kept some of the same old toys, like peeling soccer balls and plastic whiffle scoops. The big, bouncy balls are gone, though, and so is the swing set. For the best, I’m sure, as both were likely culprits to broken arms. But it’s still a shame. Those kids will never know the tantalizing fear of tipping the swing set, the heavy thump of the contraption when you swing too high and the leg pops up from the ground. They won’t be able to set up elaborate obstacle courses to bounce through on warm, sunkissed summer days.
But surely they’ll enjoy the utter bliss of the porch swings. Grandma has two now; one is under a gazebo, hanging from an old ladder. The gazebo was a longtime wish of hers that Pa made true a few summers ago. Now it’s lined with an atrocious number of windchimes, making it impossible to chat on windy days. But I don’t think he regrets it, because Grandma reports him sitting outside for hours sometimes, reading from his iPad and swaying gently. The other swing is a whole other monster, made of thick oak and assembled by Lowes. After wandering around the yard, it finally found a home on the back porch, which is where we all knew it always belonged.
“The only paradise I know is the one lit by our everyday sun, this land of difficult love, shot through with shadow,” says Sanders. He’s right.
The land I love is not the pristine beaches of the Bahamas or the awe-striking beauty of a mountain top. It’s this small patch of land surrounded by asphalt, polluted with noise and mosquitos. I love the thorns of the raspberry bushes as I love the unforgiving weather, not because it is easy, but because it’s what I love.
When I imagine my happy place, I see myself sitting on that clunky, uncomfortable, squeaky swing. The old concrete floor of the porch is cracked, with spiders lolling around. Grandma tried to plant sunflowers in the cracks one year, but it didn’t work. The roof is made of plexiglass, a rolling sea of green and white that keeps the porch warm during winter and sweltering in the summer. When I’m truly happy, it’s raining outside, and thunder booms in the distance. The raindrops sound like a stampede over the roof, and Grandma comes out to sit with me and look for lightning.
That swing holds a million memories, many of which are mine. It’s where a friend and I taught my younger cousin about puberty. It’s where I had the best nap of my life. And it bundles up the culmination of so many moments, all sitting in that single spot, which has mushed together into a single, content feeling.
I spent the first two years of my life at my grandparent’s house, being babysat while my single mother worked to support us. We moved away for a long time but came back while I was in middle school. North Pole is a tiny town, and my grandparent’s house is triangulated between the elementary, middle, and high schools, all within walking distance of one another. Instead of subjecting myself to the horrors of being an older sister, I would take off my shoes and socks and walk on cracks of hot tar until I slipped into the backyard.
I’ve been at home, with my loving family and on my own bed, and felt homesick. My home is laid out on those Alaskan grasses, obsessively trimmed by my grandma and riddled with noisy dogs. It exists in the chickweed that carpets the garden rows, and more than anything, it lives in the pod of the sugar snap peas.
Every year my grandparents plow and sow a small garden in their backyard, complete with broccoli and beets and carrots and green beans. It’s not enough to get them through the year, or even the summer, but it’s what they’ve always done, and what they continue to do despite their increasingly stubborn bodies. The best part of the garden has always been the peas. A measly wire fence marks the edge of the garden, and along it are planted peas and nasturtiums. When I was young, they exclusively planted sugar snap peas. Every day we’d inspect the plants for a few fat pods, gently pulling them off and crunching through them. Even the dogs, with their short legs, managed to snag low-hanging fruits from the vines each summer. Nowhere else would I eat peas, either because frozen peas have a terrible taste and texture or because no one was offering them, except from Grandma and Pa’s garden.
On occasion, I buy a handful of sugar snap peas from the grocery store. They aren’t excellent, but they taste like home. I bite into that smooth green pod and suddenly I’m being hugged by my grandma, sitting on the porch swing, throwing balls onto the roof and watching them roll down, building fairy houses, and running barefoot through the garden all at once. Suddenly I’m full of potential and freedom, and I feel love seep into me.
All images are courtesy of my grandma, who sifted through old shoeboxes filled with photos for hours to find them. Thank you, Gramma, for the pictures and for the memories.
