Love of Place
August 10th, 2015 | 
Author: This week I learned a new word, soliphilia, which means love of place. I’m inviting you to read a beautiful essay about place by my friend Sharman Apt Russell, who lives near the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. She starts:
I walk out of my house onto a country road. If I go north two miles, I’ll be in the Gila National Forest, 3 million acres of pure New Mexico: ponderosa pine, pinon pine, scrub oak, juniper, yucca, prickly pear. The names of familiar species are like the beads on a rosary: mountain lion, black bear, javelina, coati. If I walk south five miles, I can turn onto Highway 180 and find my way to anywhere, Dallas or Paris or Bangkok. By God (and here comes my first imitation of Walt Whitman) I live in the best of places!
Click here to read on, and enjoy her lovely pictures.
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Looks like I’d better put New Mexico on my list of places to explore. In the meantime, soliphilia is the feeling I have for where I am now in northeastern Michigan. So many beautiful places in America and throughout the world.
I find that I miss New Mexico far more than I had expected to. Russell conveys much of what I treasured about living there, while, at the same time, indirectly reinforcing my love of Mendocino. Thanks for introducing me to the word soliphilia.