my husband (@sjrhoffman) is writing a book about a place we love, a tiny village in southwest france, which prompts us to do a lot of talking. the interesting thing is that the more we talk about that mediterranean place we have fallen in love with, the more we end up talking about what it means to be from this other northern place where we were born, and which we also love. if i had to pick the three defining native objects from our village in languedoc france, i think they would include a chardon (thistle), an olive leaf, and a grape vine tendril. today, i tried to choose which three objects would define this minnesota home that i haven’t chosen so much as it has chosen me. as of today, they are a cedar branch, birch bark, and woodpecker feathers. (i reserve the right to change my mind about any or all of these tomorrow.) what three things define your “place?”
cedar and cedar berries, woodpecker feather, birch bark
shoreview, minnesota
Yes, the olive leaf would define my place too, of course, as well as wild fennel, and thyme. But I’m sure you knew.
PS : my place being not downtown Montpellier, for these references, of course. Otherwise that’d be : London planes, European nettle tree, and pigeons … ;-)
Wow! What would it be here in Waco? The nandina and pecan trees are everywhere. And in this season, living, as we do, under a steel roof which happens to be under a huge red oak, I would have to say the acorn. They keep clattering out a darling din as we are reading our books.
En mi region, La Mancha, tambien es olivos, viñedos y cardos, pero tambien es trigo y sobretodo sus bellas encinas