It runs in my veins and I cannot deny it.
Three days after returning from the ancestral lands of my people, I suddenly realize why I have chosen this small island, this Pacific Northwest place in which to live. I might actually say that it chose me.
For decades I have called this wet, verdant landscape “home.” For good reasons I have left for a few years at a time, but always my heart was called back here; always I longed for the moisture, the green, the trees, the sea-surround. It is the land here that feeds my soul.
My deep family history roots itself in another teal nature-scape: the island of Ireland.
I have longed to visit Ireland since my early twenties. I managed to tick off my seventh continent years ago but couldn’t make the easy flight to Ireland.
Perhaps I wasn’t ready to receive her as I am able to now.
Family business – a commitment to a loved one that involved going to Ireland – got me there. The comfort, familiarity, resonance with, and inexplicable connection to the isle of my grandmas and grandpas sewed me together, in place, on that land.
Rolling hills.
Green, green, green.
Teal, lime, seafoam shamrock seaweed.
Mint, moss, sage and jade.
At the water’s edge.
On the rolling hills.
Across farms, behind cottages, tucked into roofs.
Green that separates green: cultivated fields delineated by living fences.
This Pacific Northwest landscape – twin to the Emerald Isle – runs in my veins as does the land of Eire. It is sibling to my ancestors’ land. It is my land. In my depths I come from the seeds planted in that other soil. I am one with this nature and with that one. How could I not be; for it is my lifeblood.
I cannot deny the heritage of my natural history.
I cannot deny the heritage of my natural history.
All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2019 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
