Passion of Place
I heard this on NPR the other day as I was driving. Ira Glass was replaying an interview from 2000 with an author I had never heard of - Janet McDonald.
I understand passion of place. It had been 30 years since I first set foot on Ithaka, as a young girl starting out in life. On this 30th anniversary I am returning to my beloved island, not as an archaeologist to excavate its soil, but in some ways, to excavate my soul. I will be attending The Homeric Writers Retreat and pursing this other passion of mine - literature and writing. I will be passing monuments I know by heart and driving a road I have driven many times, where a sheer drop off the edge meets the sea hundreds of feet below. I have memorized this land - it has become part of my soul. It has become part of me.
I look forward to returning to the place where I have grown from girlhood to motherhood, a place that continues to encourage me across the vast sea in my journey to wise woman hood.