What 'Place' Means to Me by Brenda Leyland

'Polish Spirit' clematis

When I say, 'a place means something to me',

the place is often a location that holds significant meaning,

often tied to strong memories, emotions, and a sense

of belonging... whether it's a childhood home, a favourite

holiday spot, or a quiet corner that provides peace and comfort.

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Place matters in life. It matters to people, to plants, to stories. We all know there are places where we flourish and settings where we'll shrivel. Of course, we know where we live shapes how we see and experience the world. And we also know the community and culture in which we grow up fashions our values and beliefs. It certainly influences how we choose to spend our lives. Which makes me glad for this month's prompt. For it has been gratifying to explore the significance of ‘place’ as it relates to my own life. I'm keen to share my discoveries with you and hope something in these musings will resonate as you think about your own place in our world—maybe grab a cup of tea as the piece is longer than anticipated.

The place where I grew up. Born in the late 1950s, I grew up not so far from Edmonton, Alberta, in a farming community of families who mainly emigrated from Europe, and where many kept up their favourite traditions from the 'old country'. If you look closely, you'll probably find a 'peck' of prairie dirt mixed in with my German-Polish genes. I was certainly shaped by the rural landscape and the 1950s mindset that still influenced us well into the '60s and early '70s. Our family life revolved around the church community which created not only a religious framework but a social and cultural one as well.

We often love what we first know, and I loved the freedom of farm life. My parents worked hard, but their lives were their own. As kids, after school and when our chores were done, we enjoyed playing with playmates from neighbouring farms, tromping amongst trees and rock piles, fields, meadows, and down by the creek. For me, the freedom of living on the farm became the benchmark of what I wanted for my life—to have the freedom of being a stay-at-home wife and mother like my mom and working for oneself like my dad. When he started working full-time off the farm (I was in my early teens), I couldn’t have expressed it then, but I felt a deep loss in that change of life for our family, even though it got better economically. He had to go off every day to work and his time wasn't his own anymore. Even as a child, I missed that for him. When I moved away, it took a while to adapt to living in a city, where people lived not by the seasons of planting and harvesting but by the clock and a definite work week: what time you had to start and when you could go home; when you could take your lunch break or go on your annual vacation. I did love my new city life, but I never stopped missing that old freer way of life.

Places that surprise with joy. American naturalist and photographer Edwin Way once said that some places make an instant and indelible impression. How true. And how often do these unforgettable places shape our lives at a level deeper than we’re conscious of. They fill us with startled joy, with longing, with a homesick feeling we're not sure about, and sometimes with an overwhelming sense of wellbeing. I have always loved the Rocky Mountains for the sense of peace that comes to me when I travel through them. Coming face to face with those grand, snowy peaks, being in that mountain air, makes my heart swell with delight. As kids, traveling with my parents, my siblings and I would 'race' to see who would spot them first, and who'd be the first to yell, I can see them, I can see them, as our car sped along. First glimpses of cherished places like the mountains... or the ocean... or the wide open prairie skies never cease to create frissons of joy in my heart.

The right place in a garden. We had high hopes that our 'Polish Spirit' clematis would, to quote the well known adage, bloom where she was planted. We wanted her to climb wildly up trellises along a west facing fence which got late afternoon sunlight. Every spring it started out hopeful as she grew new tendrils and formed new flower buds. And every summer it brought the same disappointing result: a handful of flowers on a plant that barely grew three feet tall. Then my husband built a new trellis on the south-easterly corner of our house and set Polish Spirit in that spot. What a difference! She bedazzled us by quickly establishing herself and climbed not only the trellis but soon reached for the eavestroughs. The photo on the right isn't a great shot but you get the idea how she flourished once we set her in the right place. So yes, place matters, even in a garden.

Places in stories. As writers, we use our settings to let the reader know where the story takes place and in what era. It creates authenticity. It also creates an atmosphere so real as to become a 'character' in the story. I vividly remember hearing Anne of Green Gables read aloud by my Grade Four teacher. It was the first time I'd met Anne... and her creator's lively descriptions of the orchards in bloom and the red soil in a place called Prince Edward Island stood out in my imagination. I wanted to be there, it was so real. And I'd feel a little dazed, when my teacher closed the book, to realize I was back in my school classroom. Back in my own small town farming community that was not nearly as charming as Prince Edward Island by the sea, in my child's opinion, where we didn't have cherry blossom orchards to walk under, or lakes of shining waters to dream over. But I knew how to romanticize and envision myself inside a story and feel it around me even as I lived in my own surroundings. I loved Anne, whose love for beauty in nature in a place called Prince Edward Island, wooed me into loving beauty in nature right here in my own world.

Places that inspire creativity. As creative beings, the places where we live (or visit) can often inspire our creative choices of what we will do with our hands, minds, and lives. When I visited the Lake District area in England years ago, I could see why well-known poets and artists drew inspiration from its landscape. It was beautiful. I went in search of the famous poem and memorized 'The Daffodils' by William Wordsworth. And I wondered whether he would have been the inspiring nature poet we know today if, instead, he’d lived in some drab coal mining town in England's Midlands. And I wondered if Beatrix Potter's work as a children’s author/artist would have been so endearing and rural if she’d lived her entire life in stuffy Victorian-Edwardian London. Venturing a guess – perhaps, but maybe not.

When I visited Oxford in England for my 60th birthday, something deep inside responded to this ancient of places with its romance of architecture, history, and 'dreaming spires', not to mention the beloved authors who once lived there, like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. I knew, as I walked those old streets and breathed its air, that I was standing in the 'home of my soul'. And when I read that Sarah Clarkson, a favourite author, lives in Oxford with her family and writes her thoughtful, gorgeous books in this awe-inspiring place, I felt so happy for her. She is in her element. 

In a different world, in a different life, I would choose to live there, even if it was for only a season. While I cannot live there in person, I do let it inspire me from afar. For, I still have that God-given imagination I had in Grade Four where I can imagine myself into that place while I dream up lovely things to write.

The place where I write. My room with a view, as Virginia Woolf once coined the phrase, is a former child-size bedroom where its original windows were set so high on the wall only a tall person could look out. When upgrading our windows, we decided this north facing room needed longer, taller panes of glass. Which made all the difference. Instead of a stuffy little room with poky windows, it became the place where I love to sit at my desk peering into the backyard where spring bulbs bloom and birds congregate at the birdbath. Where I muse and watch clouds wander by. Surrounded by things that make me happy—books, flowers, artwork, meaningful objects like my Oxford coffee mug, and treasured photos—it's where I love to create.

My place in the world. It took me years to feel 'at home' in this world. I found it nerve-wracking trying to fit in at school, at church, at college, at work. It was during my 20s when the Lord began to show me that he had indeed prepared a place for me here on planet earth. That I belonged in this time in history. That I had a right to breathe and use the resources at my disposal. To be at home in the corner of the world where I lived and moved and had my being. One day I want to go to that place called Heaven where the Lord will welcome me. But he first set me in this place to live my life. To set down roots and do my utmost to make my corner of it 'a bit of heaven on earth' where beauty, freedom, love, and peace reigns.

How do I know when I'm in the right place? To use the proverbial phrase, it’s when I don't feel like I’m a square peg in a round hole. And when I feel in tune with my God-given gifts, using them to do work that is both beautiful and useful. When I feel I am in that ‘spacious place’ as mentioned in Psalm 18:19. Where I am... at home.

Photo credit:
Clematis photos by Brenda Leyland

Inspired by the beauty of God's world around her, Brenda loves shaping words into beautiful thoughts for good. Her sweet spot 'place' for writing happens to be on her blog It's A Beautiful Life.