Response 8: Landscape and language

In her book, The Solace of Open Spaces, Gretel Ehrlich makes it very difficult to distinguish between nature and culture. Ehrlich describes the landscape as so much a part of westerners’ lives in a way that suggests that ranchers, cowboys and sheepherders would lose their identities if they lost their land. One of the most apparent affects the nature has on western culture is in the way the landscape affects language. Because the landscape is so vast and people so few, Ehrlich explains how and why ranchers, cowboys, sheepherders and other residents are so scattered. As a result of their solitary lives, they spend more time with animals than humans and speak very little.

After reading the first few chapters of her book, I realized that Ehrlich’s own voice—despite being an “outsider” from New York—had also been affected by the Wyoming landscape. Her writing style portrays a common characteristic of western speech: short-windedness. She writes matter-of-factly and does not waste words. Even though she fully describes settings and scenes in order to help the reader understand western life, Ehrlich is very direct. She does not embellish but provides just enough description to get the job done. For example, in the “From a Sheepherder’s Notebook” chapter, she ends with a scene between herself and John, the ranch foreman. She hints at the compassion John feels toward her as she arrives to the sheep’s summer range with cracked lips and a sunburned face. Ehrlich writes, “[John] turns away because something tender he doesn’t want me to see registers in his face,” and continues, “We stand facing each other, then embrace quickly. He holds me close, then pulls away briskly and scuffles the sandy dirt with his boot.” In both instances, Ehrlich states what happened but does not expand to describe her internal thoughts. She could have mentioned how happy or relieved she felt to see John again, or interpreted John’s feelings toward her for the reader. Instead she allows a simple statement to express the friendship and compassion she and John share. As a reader I did not feel as if I lacked detail, which I think is Ehrlich’s intention; to portray the western attitude through her own speech affected by the years she spent in Wyoming. Several chapters later, in “On Water” Ehrlich identifies this short-windedness by comparing speech to water when she writes, “Cowboys have learned not to waste words from not having wasted water, as if verbosity would create a thirst too extreme to bear.” For me, this sentence summed up the western way of speech.

The effect Wyoming’s landscape had on residents’ way of speaking makes perfect sense to me because it reminds me of the way the land in my hometown affect people’s attitudes. Since I am originally from a rural area, I can identify with a simpler lifestyle. Petoskey, my Michigan hometown, has always been surrounded by farmland and woodlands. There are no shopping malls or night clubs. For evening entertainment friends spend their time at bars and families at high school basketball or football games. A large percentage of the population participates in recreational activities such as boating, swimming or downhill skiing for the obvious fact that there aren’t many other options. Because family-friendly activities are very popular, townspeople have created a close-knit community based on friendliness. Complete strangers smile to each other on the street or help each other when in need. I remember one winter when my car slid off the icy road into a snow bank. Two men passed me in a car and stopped. Without asking whether I needed help, they grabbed a spade from their trunk and immediately began shoveling snow away from my tires. One of the men wasn’t wearing gloves despite the twenty-degree weather, so I lent him my own mittens. He wore them gladly. As soon as the two men finished, they rushed back into their car. I managed to call a quick “thank you” after them before they drove away. I never saw them again.

Of course, Northern Michigan has a completely different landscape than Wyoming. And even though Petoskey has a small population of about 6,500 people, Wyoming has significantly fewer. But, what Petoskey and Ehrlich’s Wyoming has in common is a landscape that contains more nature elements than buildings or people. As a result, people do tend to enjoy the simpler aspects of life because they have fewer distractions such as overcrowded shopping malls, extensive freeway systems, and human noise. Without these distractions, I am able to enjoy views of forests and open water, wildflowers such as white trilliums and lady slippers, wildlife such as white-tailed deer, wild turkeys and loons. Overall, the effect it has on me is that it creates a sense of peace within myself and I feel much calmer and more likely to smile to a stranger I pass on the sidewalk.