Why I Wrote a Love Letter to the Place where I Work

Over Labor Day weekend, I participated in a workshop in New Mexico by Dr. Sharon Blackie about the humxn connection to land and place. She writes and talks about the importance of knowing Place’s history, context, and geology along with the importance of rewriting old myths/stories to promote modern connections to Place to heal traumas of our time.

Sharon describes the connection to Place as:

…the process of learning to belong to any new place is in part a process of internal mapping. Not just physical mapping – I know where this track leads; I know what is over that hill – but emotional mapping, as the landscape begins to reveal its mysteries to you, to hint at its stories, and you begin to form a bond with it. Like any new relationship, it is about building attachments to particular locations and features which, over time, become familiar and loved. You can learn to belong anywhere, in this way, if you choose. It’s an act of creation, and like all acts of creation, it’s also an act of love, and an enormous leap of faith. (Blackie, 2018, p. 55)*

There is so much I could unpack with this choice to connect in and love (or not). I left reflecting a lot about the Places I’ve lived, wanted to live or visit, and how, as a wild nature lover, can urban landscapes fit into connection to Place. Sharon says that every Place we have ever lived (and worked) or been called to can teach us something about ourselves and our role in the world.

I am guilty of primarily thinking of my connection to Place when it is a beautiful sunrise, a flowering meadow, the cool, crisp air high up in the Rockies, or a sunset, yet maybe less when it’s an urbanscape or college campus. Yet, I work in a higher education organization full of many buildings and I live in a small Western downtown area, both with limited green spaces within and between. How, then, do I make sense of my connection to Place when the land serves purposes beyond me, such as education, employment, retail?

I wanted to bring this conversation into my work, as I’ve been incrementally integrating personal and professional with each other over the last couple years. In preparing for class last week – I teach graduate students and it is the beginning of the semester still - I wanted to offer some context of Place to them.

I shared a lot but, essentially, we live on this land, the Coloradoan plains, that recall much pain. Traumatic forced removals of the Ute, Cheyenne, Arapaho and Pawnee tribes. Resource hoarding by colonizers and a continued use of land for humxn gain through agriculture and livestock. Land, as it is so across the U.S., full of socially constructed boundaries and erasure of stories and names of Place.

It seems the modern challenge for those who find ourselves on this land, and land similar to this, is how to connect appropriately to Place when: (1) we do not have roots here and peoples have been displaced; and (2) the land and spirit has been damaged at the hands and will of Man.

What then can I/we do that recognizes this and offers hope and healing rather than overwhelm?

I decided to combine this connection of Place to my continued work on learning to Love and rewriting my relationship to work. What, then, is a first step that I can offer to Place given the land’s history and my own herstory? A Love Letter, of course!

An Exercise in Love Letter Writing:

During Sharon’s workshop, we wrote Love Letters to our current Place of living. After returning home, I wanted to see if I could write a love letter when Place is an institution (of my J-O-B) rather than a favorite tree or garden or town.

Why even write a love letter, you ask? A letter of love demonstrates the nature of a relationship, one’s feelings, the connection, and a promise of commitment. Its purpose is one of courtship. Courtship with and between land and humxn.

How I could possibly create and feel connection to Place when place is an institution? How could I feel love and connection to Place of my J-O-B when I sit in a building with no windows from the 1960s concrete architectural years. At first glance, it does not inspire wonderment or awe.

What I realized as I struggled at first is that I interact every work day with this Place of institution whether I am conscious of it or not. Could I make a choice to interact intentionally?

Connected to this land, is my security and financial stability that resides in monthly paychecks, health insurance, and my future through retirement contributions. I’m fed by this land through walks next to the old trees, visiting dining halls and coffee carts, or partaking of potlucks with students. My stomach and soul find nourishment on this Place of institution.

She speaks to me in messages of wind blowing, cicadas, smells of feed lots on the eastern edge of town, eons of memories, stories of the land’s history, and the sound of people’s voices in the distance. She gives to me every day. I felt foolish when I realized that she gives to me all the days of my life - for the last 9 years that I’ve lived here.

This shifted me internally. I can and do create an intentional connection to the land under the institution. Honoring the history of the land and of its current use by humxns. Speaking aloud the histories and traumas. I do this to create a positive shift for myself, those I work with and for, and for Mother Earth – the larger Place.

She gives me so much when I pause to reflect. Thus, I can at least offer her one love letter!

My Love Letter

Dear Place,

You are more than the location of my J-O-B. That I drive to. That I park at and on. That I walk across.

To call you “just the place I work” is to diminish your importance and presence in my life. You provide me daily sustenance and shelter.

You took in me and judged me not, even when humxns took up that role.

You opened your arms and laid out your riches and lessons.

You said,

“Come walk on my paths,
Admire my trees blowing in the wind,
Listen to the songs of my cicadas,
Find your way in my secret garden.”

In that garden tucked away on the edge of a forgotten part of campus, I have felt warm tears on my face while your winds wrapped around me like a hug. It was there I witnessed the majestic nature of your bald eagles soaring above my head. They reminded me of my earthly dwelling.

I grounded in with two humxn feet planted on your soil.
Yet, my dreams were free to rise above with the eagles.

Men have laid out concrete pathways through your Place.
Yet, it is your true essence that reminds me to make my own path through this humxn life.

For too long I have been like the other humxns who take and plunder from Place. “Give me, give me, give me,” is too often the modern humxn cry.

For too long, I have been another humxn trapped in the world of egoic drama unconcerned about you and overly focused on preserving my individuality at a cost to you.

You have given to me daily, what then can I offer you in reciprocity?

What is a promise that I can make to you that would kill me to break**? 

(silence)

Then I heard your message. You whispered,

“Step into your true self, show up at Place in full authenticity and personal integrity.”

I will listen and do my humxnly best. In the meantime, please accept this love letter of my gratitude.

Love,

A Humxn of this Place

Now Your Turn

Assess. Reflect on your current relationship or connection to your Place? Do you find it easier or more flowing, as I did, to think about Place warmly when it is your home, or town?

What shifts when you think about your relationship to where you work? So many of us spend lots of hours each week at this other physical location from our homes or, if we work at a distance, our energies are somewhere else.

Action. Take a walk, sit outside, look out your windows, (if you happen to windows where you work, I do not). Ground in and tune inward. Give attention first to your breathing. Then next open your ears, eyes, and heart to what’s around you. Are you listening as you walk or sit? Pause to hear the sounds and messages blowing in on the winds. What would your love letter to Place say? In what ways does it feel easy or challenging to write? Upon completion, would you too, like myself, feel an internal shift of appreciation and gratitude for Place?

Write. Place words and images onto paper as if to seal the connection. Let the words flow as long or short as you need to express your gratitude and connection.

Choose connection. Choose love. Choose your Place. Let’s show up to all of our Places with our whole selves to start healing.  

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this or even share some of your letters!

Living and Loving
xoxo

*Blackie, S. (2018). The Enchanted Life: Unlocking the Magic of the Everyday. Denmark: September Publishing.

**Concept from the poem, "All the True Vows" by David Whyte from The House of Belonging

A video throw back to the songs of the ‘secret’ garden I referenced….