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JackSherrickSecondEssay 12 - 01 Jun 2021 - Main.JackSherrick
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< | Setting Down Roots in Small and Large Places | >
> | Setting Down Roots | | | -- By JackSherrick - 15 Apr 2021 | | | I grew up in the "Prairie State" and did my best to help the area live up to its nickname. My family is involved with prairie conservation and maintains an island of native prairie amidst the sea of feed corn abutting it from all sides. We mow trails, sow seeds, and conduct prairie burns to preserve the quality of the topsoil that had been deposited there tens of thousands of years earlier. I followed the prairie to Carleton College, which boasts an 800 acre arboretum teeming with native and nonnative grasses. | |
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< | When I moved to New York from Minnesota, I left the Midwest and its flat open spaces behind. I was disoriented by the looming buildings that seemed to stretch vertically into infinity yet blocked out the horizon. I felt closed in. Most of the activity done in the prairie is occurring beneath your feet in the congested webs of roots pulling nutrients from the soil and pumping them up to the gently swaying stems above. But in New York, everything seems to be happening everywhere. I learned to find refuge amongst the various parks that mottle the concrete landscape and how to appreciate the cacophony of humanity that I myself was contributing to. I started to develop roots that anchored me to the alien landscape I had moved to. I carved out a small space for myself within the large space that is New York City. | >
> | When I moved to New York from Minnesota, I left the Midwest and its flat open spaces behind. The looming buildings that seemed to stretch vertically into infinity disoriented me. I felt closed in. Most of the activity done in the prairie occurs beneath your feet in the congested webs of roots pulling nutrients from the soil and pumping them up to the gently swaying stems above. In New York, everything seems to be happening everywhere. I learned to find refuge amongst the various parks that mottle the concrete landscape and how to appreciate the cacophony of humanity that I myself a part of. I started to develop roots that anchored me to the alien landscape I had moved to. I carved out a small space for myself within the large space that is New York City. | | |
My Practice | | | Space in Law School | |
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< | The relationship between small and large spaces is an ever-present concern in law school. Wendell Berry writes about the danger of disregarding the small spaces that allow us to enjoy the large places. He writes in his essay Contempt for Small Places, "the health of the oceans depends on the health of rivers; the health of rivers depends on the health of small streams; the health of small streams depends on the health of their watersheds. The health of the water is exactly the same as the health of the land." In the same way, my health in law school depends on my health in New York which depends on my health in Morningside Heights which depends on my health in the law school and my apartment, a space which I can call almost exclusively my own. If people do not have security in their small spaces, the chain is broken and harm reverberates from one space to the next and to the next. | >
> | The relationship between small and large spaces is an ever-present concern in law school. Wendell Berry writes in his essay Contempt for Small Places, "the health of the oceans depends on the health of rivers; the health of rivers depends on the health of small streams; the health of small streams depends on the health of their watersheds. The health of the water is exactly the same as the health of the land." In the same way, my health in law school depends on my health in New York which depends on my health in Morningside Heights which depends on my health in the law school and my apartment, a space which I can call almost exclusively my own. If people do not have security in their small spaces, the chain is broken and harm reverberates from one space to the next and to the next. | | | | |
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< | I don't value the space inside Jerome Greene Hall because it insulates me from what's outside, I value it for the people it contains on the inside. I want to set down roots along with my fellow law students to weather the erosive forces that would seek to drag us towards money, dissociation, or a what without a why. I want to remain anchored to a why so each setback, failure, and burn doesn't uproot me but rather restores me so I can spring back up more energized than before. | >
> | I don't value the space inside Jerome Greene Hall because it insulates me from what's outside, I value it for the people it contains on the inside. I want to set down roots along with my fellow law students to weather the erosive forces that would seek to drag us towards money, dissociation, and a what without a why. I want to remain anchored to a why so each setback, failure, and burn doesn't uproot me but rather restores me so I can spring back up more energized than before. | | | |
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