Of Landscape and Longing: Finding a Home at the Water's Edge

In her several essays on the landscapes through which Carolyn Servid has traveled, from India to Alaska, she lets us understand her secret longing, the drive of her restlessness and her seeking for something outside herself. She also takes us into the journey with memories and descriptions that are powerful and simple. She describes India so you feel the heat and hear the music. She gives us Alaska as close to the way it is, which is impossible to capture completely, but Carolyn comes as close as anyone I know.The economy in Southeast Alaska depended for a long time on timber harvest as one of its foundations. That is changing and has changed. In her chapter "Thoughts on Trees: Who Could Live Without This Grace?" Carolyn takes us on a very different journey than one might expect. This is no purely "greenie" diatribe but a thoughtful and wide-ranging conversation about value, comunity, value-added, nature and humanity in its intricate struggle for survival and our constant battle to find and place meaning where it can do either harm or much good.It is clear throughout this book that Carolyn loves this land and its people and its problems. Falling in love with the landscape over and over again, she reminds us how fragile we are, how implacable are all of nature's forces, and how, if we listen, we can learn.This is on my "I recommend this book to everyone I know" list. It is also a very good introduction to life in Southeast Alaska.