Some people writing online have gotten together and formed a wiki, a collective website, called Ecotone: Writing About Place. Most of the current members of Ecotone are living in and writing about rural places, but I wanted to join them because I have a strong sense of this very urban place where I live, Chennai, India. When I first began to think about what I wanted to do with a blog, the thing that came to mind was to chronicle a particular life in this particular place.
The Ecotone members decided to write collectively about "how I started thinking about place - and why I started writing about it." The results are here. If anyone reads this and finds the idea of writing about place compelling, we welcome you to join the ongoing discussion. I would particularly like to see some more urban places represented: the meadows, streams and forests are lovely, but I also want to breathe city-grit, and walk on uneven paving stones!
Anyway, here's my contribution to the topic:
Most people don't really see the places where they live. I'm so lucky to have pulled up my roots and transplanted myself to a strange place. No matter how long I live here, it will always be somewhat exotic to me. I see it. Little things tickle me - or annoy me - every day. It keeps me on my toes. Because things are so interesting, peculiar, irritating, I want to share them with others. Look! Can you believe this?
I live in an ancient culture, which has taken in many invaders. Yet it remains itself. I am fascinated by the modern things that have ancient roots. I want to tell you about them.
Chennai is changing rapidly. India grows more prosperous, the outside world enters willy-nilly, old buildings are torn down. I want to chronicle the buildings and customs that I care about before they disappear .
I grew up in a small city, Alexandria, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. I could look out of my door in Old Town and see the Potomac River. It was a beautiful place. I was conscious of being lucky to live in an old house, looking out over the broad river. It always seemed to rain on weekends, just to spoil them. Now I live on the seacoast, in a not-very-old house, in the tropics. In spite of the poor drainage, and mess, and flooding it entails, I long for rain, for the monsoon. In my mind, the monsoon has become a season of romance, when peacocks dance in the forests -- even though the only peacocks I have seen have had their tails plucked out to sell to tourists...
This place is such a mixture of everything, I feel compelled to talk about it. I guess that's the real reason why I write about place.
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