My small town, like so many others, is trying to find a way to best navigate in a world of rapid and disconcerting change. Technology and communication systems seem to change overnight, and the media brings news of polarized politics, global warfare, and global starvation. Climate change is altering our environments, and its extreme weather events are forcing people, indeed entire populations, to leave the places they love. I’m living here in Massachusetts in large part because my town in Oregon burned down.

It can be hard to ride the waves of change and stay grounded.  In truth, I have never felt so ungrounded as I did on our 12-day move across the country to Massachusetts. We moved several months after the Firestorm took out 2500 homes and displaced 10,000 people, an event which left me grieving and feeling very adrift.

Our 12 day journey took place in late June, during Covid. We trailered up our livestock and transported our 5 dogs and one brave cat with us in our truck, in blistering temperatures of over 100 degrees. The day after we left our Oregon town experienced temperatures of 116 degrees. We travelled in that heat for 5 days. Once we reached the Midwest the weather changed dramatically to torrential rains which followed us to Massachusetts.

Due to the animals, we found few places in which to stay overnight, so every day the priority was to keep the animals alive and find some kind of safe place before dark (which hardly ever happened). As we moved further away from our hometown, I once again recognized the intense feeling of being adrift, but these were fleeting connections to myself because my sole focus was on our collective survival. We had a grueling schedule of 20-hour days that always ended with finding  a safe place to camp at night.

Eventually a night came when there was just no place for us to camp. We had to make a place out of no place, so we found a small town, then a small coffee shop, and we set up our tent in pouring rain on the front lawn of that restaurant at 3:00 AM. Three hours later we were awakened by the sound of customers in the parking lot. I arose to break down the tent and care for the animals, and shyly greeted one of the customers who passed by me. He responded with a sneer and a disdainful wave of the hand.

In that brief exchange something inside of me switched.  After 8 desperate days on the road, no sleep, no showers, no change of clothes, and little time to eat, I had few physical or psychological reserves. I experienced my body  contract under the person’s judgment. I felt fearful, alienated, and.. HOMELESS! My triggered brain ran every video I had recently seen of homeless people being evicted and refugees collapsing onto streets to sleep. I was the embodiment of homelessness, and it showed in my thoughts, feelings, and presence. From my ungrounded state I wondered if I would ever feel at home and safe again.

Even after we settled into our new home, I continued to reflect on the journey and what I had learned from it. One day I noticed an article (Jan 5, 2022, Main Street) by Ed McMahon on The Importance of Place. I’d like to share what I learned with you.

There is a term for what we care most about in our towns, and it is called a felt sense of place. McMahon defines a felt sense of place as the unique collection of qualities and characteristics existing in a town that create meaning for each of us. These attributes may be social, cultural, visual, auditory, physical (built or natural) They might be the morning smells from the local bakery, or the daily routine of dodging chickens along the road on your drive home, or the memory of how many neighbors stop to chat as you take your morning walk, or a historic building you love, or your felt sense of walking through a cool, deeply wooded forest at the edge of town. Your individual sense of place derives from your unique cluster of beloved town qualities or characteristics, and your collective sense of space is defined as those qualities or characteristics most frequently identified by individuals. Our collective sense of place informs our identity and our sense of well-being, anchoring us through memories which elicit deep feelings of belonging.

McMahon’s article allowed me to articulate that it was the loss of my sense of place that initially set me adrift. The Firestorm that engulfed our Oregon town destroyed many of the beloved physical (natural and built) attributes of our town that grounded me. The subsequent exodus of 10,000 neighbors removed much of the culture and traditions as well as the social interactions and friendships which provided a sense of well-being and belonging. Once we had left on our journey, the cumulative effects of the constant struggle to stay alive coupled with the absence of any sense of place put me into an embodied state I had never experienced, which I call the state of homelessness. The disparaging look and dismissive wave of the person at the coffee shop was all I needed to become aware of it.     

It is worth re-iterating that our sense of place informs our identity and acts to provide a sense of well-being and belonging.  When I think about people who are migrating or homeless now, I recognize in my depth what they are living without. A sense of place is a protective health factor which helps keep our identity intact.

The good news is that our sense of place derives in part from the values, beliefs, and behaviors that create our town culture, and how we show up for one another and others. Because we create our culture, we can feel empowered to reflect on and save what is nourishing, while building new beliefs, behaviors and practices that we aspire to.  

I’m curious about what your communities are doing to identify their collective sense of place. How would you find out what these attributes are? How might you improve or expand the sense of place to be more inclusive of others? How can you protect, expand, and celebrate what is best about your town?

Finally, as we think about the challenges that we will be facing in our future, I invite you, as a leadership practice, to make time to consider how you can embody home, welcome, or hope to those who may have lost track of their own. 

I appreciate you taking the time to read this and welcome any feedback.   

May we all feel at home.

– Karen Elise