The Solace of Open Spaces

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Any one of [its 12 chapters] stands beautifully on its own . . .She brings the long vistas into focus with the poise of an Ansel Adams." — The New York Times Book Review Any one of [its 12 chapters] stands beautifully on its own . . .She brings the long vistas into focus with the poise of an Ansel Adams.” — The New York Times Book Review Ehrlich is instantly captivated by the landscape of Wyoming: “Wyoming seems to be the doing of a mad architect—tumbled and twisted, ribboned and faded, deathbed colors, thrust up and pulled down as if the place had been startled out of a deep sleep and thrown into a pure light.” In Greenland there is no ownership of land. What you own is your house, your dogs, your sleds and kayaks. Everyone is fed. It is a food-sharing society in which the whole population is kept in mind--the widows, elderly, infirm, and ill are always taken care of. Jens said, "We weren't born to buy and sell, but to be out on the ice with our families.” A writer makes a pact with loneliness. It is her, or his, beach on which waves of desire, wild mind, speculation break. In my work, in my life, I am always moving toward and away from aloneness. To write is to refuse to cover up the rawness of being alive, of facing death.”

The solitude in which westerners live makes them quiet...Sentence structure is shortened. Descriptive words are dropped, even verbs...What’s behind this laconic style is shyness. There is no vocabulary for the subject of feelings. It’s not a hangdog shyness, or anything coy— always there’s a robust spirit in evidence behind the restraint...The silence is profound. Instead of talking, we seem to share one eye. Keenly observed, the world is transformed. The landscape is engorged with detail, every movement on it chillingly sharp. The air between people is charged. Days unfold, bathed in their own music. Nights become hallucinatory; dreams, prescient.

This book falls into a genre of literature of which I am very fond --- personal observations and understandings of place. However, this book left me cold. I can't decide which aspect annoyed me more --- the fact that the book was clearly written by a tourist who chose to stay and now believes herself to be an expert, that the book has so little of both the author and the place in it, or the false claims of being a look at the "real" west and then providing only slight additions to the romanticized, Hollywood version of the west. Or maybe it was that the title led me to believe that the book would be filled with observations about healing and comfort found in open spaces of the American west, but aside from the fact that the author chose to live in the west after a personal tragedy, there is little in these essays that suggest that the open spaces provided the solace. Il Wyoming è la terra della salvia, scrive Greta Ehrilch, e io non lo immaginavo, ma anche del vento, della neve, del freddo che ti si insinua nelle ossa e ti anestetizza la mente, e qui è rispondente al mio immaginario. The Solace of Open Spaces, by Gretel Ehrlich, is a beautiful little book that I happened upon in the sale bin at a used book store. In the late 1970s, Ehrlich traveled to Wyoming on assignment for her work, and stayed because it draw her in in her grief upon losing her loved one to cancer. She lived there for many years, living and working on ranches, and this book is a collection of essays describing her time there and the feeling of living there. Her writing is lyrical and almost what I would call "prose poetry" at times. She conveys effectively the wide open feeling of Wyoming, and I was easily able to imagine the scenes and sensations she described. It is a lovely book and I highly recommend it. Here is a quote, selected randomly: A stunning collection of personal observations that uses images of the American West to probe larger concerns in lyrical, evocative prose that is a true celebration of the region. The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich – eBook Details

Gretel Ehrlich is a writer based in Wyoming, Montana, and Hawaii. She is the author of This Cold Heaven, The Solace of Open Spaces, and Facing the Wave, among other works of nonfiction. Her forthcoming essay collection Unsolaced will be released in January. Wyoming’s sweeping landscape may be the “doing of a mad architect, ” but for the state’s 470,000 residents, vastness is allIn a rancher’s world, courage has less to do with facing danger than with acting spontaneously, usually on behalf of an animal or another rider.” There is nothing in nature that can’t be taken as a sign of both mortality and invigoration… Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are.

I recently discovered Gretel Ehrlich, not that she isn’t well known by others. The discovery merely reflects my ignorance...and yet, I get great joy from finding new food—someone whose words I immediately want to absorb. I found the book in a used book store. The title alone intrigued me—one who thinks that soul nurturing places, solitude and silence are the final luxuries. And her essays are about Wyoming, my neighbor state and our least populated one—to me, a feature, not a bug. Also, two of my favorite authors, Annie Dillard and Edward Abbey, who I’ve re-read multiple times, gave her high praise. I expect to read more of Ehrlich. Poet and filmmaker Gretel Ehrlich went to Wyoming in 1975 to make the first in a series of documentaries when her partner died. Ehrlich stayed on and found she couldn’t leave. The Solace of Open Spaces is a chronicle of her first years on “the planet of Wyoming,” a personal journey into a place, a feeling, and a way of life. She explains all this, and tells us about men, something other than the romanticized Marlboro man version: “If he’s ‘strong and silent’ it’s because there’s probably no one to talk to.” There is an effect of “geographical vastness,” on “emotional evolution” but also a “true vulnerability in evidence...” When I requested this title in NetGalley, I did not realize it was an older book of essays coming up for a reprinting. I actually have another book from the author on my "around the world" shelves at home - This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland. So she was on my vague periphery, but I was very happy to have had a chance to read this book, even if it isn't new. After five years, Ehrlich leaves Wyoming to travel and pursue new projects. However, she keeps returning, and when she marries, she and her husband set up home in Shell, Wyoming. They run their own ranch, and Ehrlich helps out on her neighbors’ ranches whenever necessary.of a mad architect- tumbled and twisted, ribboned with faded, deathbed colors, thrust up and pulled down as if the place had been startled out of a deep sleep and thrown into pure light.” What I had lost (at least for a while) was my appetite for the life I had left: city surroundings, old friends, familiar comforts. It had occurred to me that comfort was only a disguise for discomfort, reference points, a disguise for what will always change...For the first time I was able to take up residence on earth with no alibis, no self-promoting schemes. I had suffered a tragedy and made a drastic geographical and cultural move fairly baggageless… It had occurred to me that comfort was only a disguise for discomfort; reference points, a disguise for what will always change. bello questo memoir, che nasce sotto forma di diario inviato a un'amica e la cui stesura è compresa fra il 1979 e il 1984, composto da scritti divisi per tematiche - i cowboy, appunto, i rodeo, la danza del sole - che incrociano gli incontri e gli stati d’animo dell’autrice che, californiana di nascita e newyorkese di adozione, arriva nel Wyoming per girare un documentario, resta per elaborare un lutto e finisce per non andare più via.