No more Sad Landscapes

One in an occasional series on the human relationship to everyday landscapes

While I am not a fan of winter, I love the transparency of Virginia’s winter landscapes, where grey streams flow over icy cold stone, stands of holly and pine bend in northern wind, and the rolling landform becomes evident.  You can see through  and understand what lies beyond.  The berries on most holly are now in their full plump as are the sprays of blue redcedar berries among the heather green branches, where small creatures find winter protection.

If you live in the suburbs you inevitably find yourself traveling to the contrasting unpleasant places in the landscape where large parking lots, huge one-story stores, and many cars leave you feeling forlorn.  We are allured by these places because we believe that we will find something better inside that outside.  I find little comforting or welcoming when I travel to the Best Buy, the Petsmart, or to Staples.  To me, they always turn out to be places of extreme sadness.

What saddens me most is the field of pavement that is so immense, that the earth no longer breathes here. All is coated with roof, concrete, or asphalt.  The only plant life is stuff planted to make shoppers stay on the sidewalks or methodically aligned ornamental cabbage to add “interest” to the landscape.  If you look to the real landscape this time of year and you don’t see colored cabbages, but amazing blends of brown and grey bark and blurs of evergreen and detect patterns that are truly interesting.

Band upon band of parking bays run towards the horizon, and extremely tall light poles hover above, shining horrible yellow light so you so you won’t be assaulted by another person who may just want to steal your car, filthy now from the snow-melt applied with great enthusiasm after a ½” snowfall.

Why do these places shatter us as human beings?  Why do these places exist everywhere, their formulaic combination repeated just about every four miles along the highway? They shatter us because they are solely places to exchange money and to move on. Period.

Sad landscapes deny us any relationship to the land, or to the beauty of the earth.  We must be sure that we do not create these landscapes at our campuses, despite the frequent call for “more parking!” and “more buildings.”  We have to look closely at the winter landscape to appreciate its gifts, and similarly, we should scrutinize and disapprove the kind of development that swallows it whole.

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