Gooseberry Island is a place I have visited at many different points in my life. If we’re looking for a landscape that informs who we are, and that carries my history then this is just one image of many. The everyday image that informs my daily life would look much different. Filled with people, cars, traffic and a lot of ugly buildings.
This image is the point of Gooseberry Island. There is a walking path through the center, that leads to the towers, but if you go past that it will lead to the farthest point which is here. The other way to get here is to walk along the beach. The long way. Which brings you through different beachscapes until you come to this. I would often take a long way, spending most of my day walking around the island. Sitting to eat or looking out into the ocean.
The geographical history of Gooseberry Island was that in the past, it was used as a military base during WW2 to spot U ships. Before that, it was a vacation island with cottages that were taken out during the big hurricane during the 1930s. If you walk the middle path you can still see foundation remnants. Before that, there was no causeway. Instead, there was a sandbar that you could cross over when the tide was low. Now, the area is used for recreation, beaching, fishing, boating and one of the only beaches in the area you can bring your dog to swim during the summer season.
I think that the environment does play a role in society. Geographical location does affect how people live day today. If you are by the equator, if you’re in the cold, if the sun shines straight through half the year, if you’re by the water (at sea level), if you’re in the mountains, if you’re in a populated area, if you’re in the country or if you live in the desert, like Terry Tempest Williams.
In Williams’ “Home Work”, we learn that Williams lives in the desert. Although I live in New England and experience summer – I have heard it is not like the summer in the desert. He says that summer reduces “you to a lizard state of mind, no thought, and very little action. You sleep more and you dream” (page 5). This is pretty much what I do when we have cold winters.
In the image, you can see the ocean. There is a little strip of beach, random debris that has washed up on shore, logs, so many rocks, a variety of ocean life and then finally the ocean. Within this intertidal zone is a variety of species. Snails, clams, mussels, algae, horseshoe crabs. There’s an entire ecosystem living in just this area. They survive the tide and long periods of drought and sun, the heat and the freezing cold. Throughout a tidal cycle, these critters are experiencing so much change.
Looking at this image as a whole, you can also see the many visual layers. Ocean, rocks, tidal pools, sand, beach wood, grass, dunes, sky. It’s a visual clutter. There are rocks in the ocean, rocks in the sand. Water in the rocks. Unlike Williams’ description of the desert as minimal. Which is also a statement on capitalism and consumerism.
Unlike the West, our area is mostly privately owned. A small number of beaches are available to the public. Many beaches must be accessed through the town you live in and the rest are private and generally inaccessible to much of the public.
Hi Jasmine!
I really enjoyed your example of looking at the picture you chose as the different layers of its environment. There are so many components of Earth that go into an oceanfront and the ocean itself, that we often forget how vast nature truly is. The politics and practices regarding nature with respect to geography shows just how many different personal connections that people can make with different environments. As you stated, there are many locations that can impact this, which also links to Kingsolver’s idea that people need wilderness in their lives. People can experience wilderness to much different extents than others, for example how she described that city children didn’t know about vegetables coming from the earth. These children that Kingsolver discussed and many people from cities in general are not able to form this connection as easily and do not take into consideration what it has to offer and how it is impacted. Compared to those who depend on nature heavily, they have much different politics surrounding nature. This is where I believe that Williams’s bedrock of democracy comes into play. From my personal interpretation, the bedrock of democracy that Williams discusses stems into having this connection with nature, while also having passion as well as a desire to protect nature. With different natures comes different means and levels of protection and passion, and I think that this differing of politics regarding nature can be very interesting to examine.