Land as the Canvas of Memory
BY HEATHER M. SURLS
Sitting in my parents’ yard on the foothills of the Tehachapi Mountains in California, I’m distracted. I haul my journal, a book, and a cup of tea to the splintering porch swing, intending to read or pray. But once I settle down and let my eyes pass over the 5 acres around me, I’m flooded by memories.
Before me stands the house my family built during an El-Niño year. I was approaching middle school and angry about leaving our suburban life two hours away in Ventura County. Alongside my parents, I tied intersections of rebar in the house’s foundation, picked up nails and swept sawdust during framing. My sisters and I recorded construction progress in composition books—homeschooling at its best.