“on Trespassing”: A Walking Meditation on Borders Real and Imagined
I’m interested in boundaries both real and false—the ways in which we as human beings attempt to compartmentalize and contain, the ways we divide our landscapes into states and nations, the ways we assign genres to the things we read and write. This is a theme I explore frequently in my writing in general and in the essay, “On Trespassing” specifically. Metaphorically, borders real and imagined show up in this essay in several ways—my own act of trespassing, the coyotes and beavers who cross property lines, even the micro-organisms decomposing the porcupine defy containment. It is an expansive essay, as was the walk that inspired it. As such the essay also contemplates, as I frequently do, the ill-defined border between ourselves and our environment.
The boundary between ourselves and our environment is permeable. There is no real barrier that separates us from nature nor it from us. I am interested in exploring through my writing practice the way the places we dwell affect us as much as we affect those places. How we carry the places we interact with in our bodies, how our environment has an emotional and sometimes physical impact on us, and how in turn, we have an impact on the natural world. “On Trespassing” is an essay very much about people’s relationship to the land, the idea of land ownership, land use, and land abuse.
I have a background—both through education and vocation—in Conservation Biology. Because of this background in the natural sciences, I feel an obligation to resist describing an overly idealized version of nature in my writing. I’m compelled to be honest and accurate in my descriptions—to discuss the extirpation of animal species, or the conversion of forest and prairie to agricultural land, for example—while simultaneously being artful in the expression of my ideas, being mindful to not produce writing that is overly academic or dry. I am always aware of how the line between art and science gets blurred in the practice of writing, especially writing concerned with the natural world. I am mindful to walk that line carefully.
“On Trespassing,” is in many ways a walking meditation on borders both real and imagined. What I hope to have accomplished in this essay is the same thing I hope to accomplish in much of my writing—that is, to gently invite readers to join me on this walking journey, to contemplate along with me the ways in which we engage with the natural world, and to consider how we impact the places we engage with just as those places impact us.