Solastalgia
Published in Spinsheet - June 2017
I recently finished another book from James Michener about the Chesapeake Bay, The Watermen. I’m not often enough on the Bay and have to find my brackish fix through historical fiction. At some point late in the story he mentions Devon Island. For those of you not familiar, Devon Island was a terra firma character that bridged many generations of his Chesapeake. It housed a family and agricultural lineage, eventually washed away with the few hundred years that spanned his novel. Once a large prosperous homestead it becomes the island with the old mansion listing into the sea and soon a shoal to avoid while oystering. For some reason this last reading of Devon took me back to sailing times on the bay and the interesting way Michener frames the character of space and nature tinged coated in a little solastangia.
However, the erosion of our many islands isn’t fiction. In visiting St. Clement’s Island in the Potomac one extremely hot and flat weekend many years ago, I was first introduced to this phenomenon of time eroding space. And when reading this island’s history, it is possibly one of the most real life comparisons to Devon Island. Not only did it act as Maryland settlers first resting spot. But, it started at 400 acres in about 1634 and now stands at about 62 acres. Its retreat all part of natural erosion as an island of soft material due to an ebbing and flowing river.
Bringing the conversation back to solastalgia, or at least my solastalgic personal journey at the end of Michener and memories of places and spaces once visited now lost and leaving our Bay. Solastalgia is the emotional distress that is caused by environmental change or existential woes that impact us as we see our homes and familiar spaces shifted, never to be the same again. Nostalgia is easily understood as homesickness (leaving home) where solastalia explains that similar feeling or pathos when we recognize Earthy spaces like home but we aren’t gone from them rather they leave us through environmental shifts. Often these are defined by environmental abuses: for instance, flat-topping a mountain that once was a picturesque view but now has been mined and is gone never to grace your home, space and view again. However, to argue a few points. The disappearance of the many ‘Devon’ islands in our Bay can be greatly contributed to the natural cycles of the region over time. Not to say that our current human habits aren’t’ increasing the speed at which we see these shifts and not to say we don’t have opportunities to help in many ways slow that change. But rather the disappearance can be equally likened to our children growing up and our parents growing old. Time, that ultimate equalizer, shifts our ontology. Of course the next point to be made is this, that action can be taken. If not in the way of environmental change then at least in the way of embracing the uncontrollable. As my family ages I can close my door and feed the sadness of lost times or I can embrace the moments we are in, celebrate together the past and work to make new memories for the future. Quite honestly turning St. Clement’s Island into a park and eventually a National Historic Place in 1972 is a fantastic example of just how to do that. But, for you…I think a visit is in order.
Wrapping up this piece I stumbled, much by accident, on an article in the Huffpost by Mary Papenfuss highlighting the plight of our brother watermen on Tangier Island. In it we encounter a documentary on their struggle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXxyadWaqfg. And there struggle is neither a simple matter of natures time but a certainty of raising water , equally it’s not a forgotten sand spit in our bay but home. When we share Bay solastalgia we share the plight of the treasures, and in so are left with no choice but to share in the empathy for Tangeir.
Recognizing, supporting, celebrating and visiting these grandfathers of the Bay is a great way to embrace their past and ensure their future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Islands_of_the_Chesapeake_Bay. Be here warned - solastalgia is critically based on the user’s connection to that space. So, by setting sail for some new Bay island you also set sail for future heartbreak as these places change. Tennyson says ‘tis better to have loved and lost…’ but more so I think it’s what connects us all as ‘watermen’. How we share in this love of the Bay, its marshes, natural wonders and its waning shores are one of the ways the memories stay alive.