I hate the desert. It's hot, coarse, and generally uninviting. It's the Earth's way of saying "Get out!" And yet there are so many people out there that find the desert to be something more than a bunch of rocks and sand. For them it speaks to something deeper inside. Having grown up in very forested areas, I feel more at home with trees around me. So a place like the desert does the opposite of speak to me, it repels me. So it's understandable why I wouldn't like the desert. It's someplace foreign to me. The really strange part is that this feeling of being at home in the desert doesn't only occur to people who grew up in the desert. Someone living in Chicago could have this unexplainable calling to a place they've only seen in pictures. Somehow how though that's where they would feel the most at home. What is it about these different environments that awaken something inside of us?
I've talked about places that feel like home because of the people who live there. I've even acknowledged that there are people themselves who feel like home. What is it about certain surroundings that makes us feel more at home than others? Obviously we're all individuals and have our own specific desires, but for a lot of people it's hard to fully quantify why one place, like the desert, is more suited for them than another. I have a friend who grew up in Phoenix and now can only go back for special occasions. The idea of living there is out of the question. For as long as he can remember he felt this need to be near the mountains of Colorado. When he first went there he knew it was where he wanted to live, even though it took him several years to make it happen. In that time that feeling never diminished, like so many flights of fancy that come and go throughout our lives.
How is it that some places are colored by seemingly unrelated associations? When I first moved to the desert it was completely different from anything I had known. For a time it was fine because it took me forward in life. Eventually though I found that it was not even close to where I wanted or needed to be. Combined with several unpleasant experiences over the course of my time there has forever created a negative association with the desert as a whole. Even the place I currently live has connotations towards very specific aspects of my life, some of which alter how I look at this place. It's hard to say if we can ever really look at a place without being influenced by the surrounding associations we've built.
Have you ever walked into a room and known something was missing? At first glance you may not be able to immediately spot that thing that's out of place, but somehow the whole room feels wrong due to its absence. Your brain is aware of the change, even if you haven't quite caught up to realizing it. It's interesting how a lot of life can be the same way. A part of us knows that something isn't there. It's figuring out that which is absence that's not always easy. There are some aspects of our lives that when left unfulfilled become painfully apparent. The absence of food, sleep, or even love all make themselves known almost immediately. The complete lack of any of those leaves an obvious gaping hole in our lives. It's when we lose pieces of something a little bit at a time that it becomes easier to overlook their absence or at least not notice until it has become glaringly apparent. When you're driving down a dark road at night you have to be looking for what you can see, but you also have to be looking for what you can't. Having grown up in a place where large animals could wander out in front of you it got to be second nature to be on the lookout for the absence of what was in front of you. Sometimes what you can't see is more important. There are places in our lives that seem to supply us with everything we feel we need, while there are places which feel like something is missing. The question really becomes is it something real that's missing or just those old associations creeping in and painting a picture that may not really exist except in our mind?
