You remind me of a land that I once knew

Two summers ago, in 2010, I drove solo across North America, ducking up through New York State into Canada, and then across that beautiful and formerly unknown-to-me country to British Columbia. On my way, I heard a lot of good music, composed a lot of prose in my head (which got written down in the tent every night), and listened to dozens of episodes from the New Yorker Fiction podcast, in which various literary figures read short stories from the magazine's pages.

I was somewhere halfway across Saskatchewan, hoping to find a campground before it got too dark, and adding a repair to a recently chipped windshield (courtesy of a large truck earlier that day) to my California future to-do list, when I heard it. The line that moved me more than any other single sentence since Hemingway's "She was built with the curves of the hull of a racing yacht."*

In his short story Bullet in the Brain, Tobias Wolff writes: "He did not remember when everything began to remind him of something else."

I was only 23 -- had barely seen the United States, much less the rest of the world. Yet that line resonated perfectly. Isn't it true that, so often, we encounter a new place, or meet a new person, or read a new book, and the first words out of our mouth are, "This/She/That reminds me of..."

Once I recognized that pattern in myself, I started to recognize its effects on my perceptions. By constantly creating comparisons between current and past experiences, in some ways I was no longer purely experiencing things, the way a child does when the world is fresh and new. I realized that I missed that childlike approach, because by setting up the comparison, I inevitably doomed one of my memories to a lesser status.

Since then -- and inspired by lots of deep breathing during yoga sessions -- I've made a conscious effort to live in the present. It's not always easy, and in the last year I've allowed myself to fall out of the habit (much to my dismay; this is one of the reasons a journal is my constant companion here in New Zealand). I've consciously tried not to think of other places, other people, other experiences when I encounter something new. I've tried to be inspired and moved by the newness of places.

Still, here in New Zealand, I can't help but be astounded by just how familiar some scenes are. Perhaps it's especially striking because I am as far away from home as I've ever been. I hope, at least, that this recognition leads to an appreciation for how many places I've had the privilege of seeing, rather than leading to a jaded life of comparative cynicism. If nothing else, familiarity here has bred comfort, rather than contempt.

And so I thought I'd devote one post to showing you what I mean.  Agree, disagree, or rant at me for my time-wasting pattern seeking.  All's (comparatively) fair in love and photography.

Interior British Columbia.  Possibly driven by the sunbeam.

California's central coast.

Oregon's Emerald Coast.  On a calm day.

Florida.  Or Barbados.  Somewhere tropical, with lots of limestone.

Hawaii.  Maybe an old mission worn away by the waves?

Cape Cod.  Really no reason except the weathered fence.

California.  Hands down.  Although anytime I look into a wave-filled bay, I think of Barbados.

New Jersey.  Where it's flat, and the sand dunes are stabilized by beach grass.

The Inside Passage.

The Inside Passage.

California's Channel Islands, anyone?

Victoria.  Both this scene in particular, and Wellington's coastal bike path in general.

Sweden, Alaska, any boreal zone.  You can't really see them in this
shot, but there are lots of little ericaceous shrubs covering the ground.

*Describing Brett, heroine of The Sun Also Rises. I can safely say that neither that book, nor Bullet in the Brain, remind me of anything else.