Solace of Open Spaces

Nancy Lo

History of the Environment assignment 3

10/30/14

“The Solace of Open Spaces,” Gretel Ehrlich, 1985

Gretel Ehrlich’s inauguration into life on the high plains of Wyoming, and her ensuing deep resonance with the state, is the essence of “The Solace of Open Spaces.” Life there is hard – the six-month-long winters are so brutal that livestock die where they stand and when people try to leave their homes, they’re thwarted by snow-packed roads and have to turn back. And then when winter finally ends, “spring weather is capricious and mean. It snows, then blisters with heat.” (Ehrlich, 1985, p. 7) Wyoming is a state of wind and dust. Sheep herding, which Ehrlich is thrust into when another herder abruptly quits, is relentless and grueling. She came to Wyoming to make a film about sheep ranching, and while there her partner died. She withdrew from life, but Wyoming’s rhythms and vastness were therapeutic, and she found herself at home.

“Life on the sheep ranch woke me up. The vitality of the people I was working with flushed out what had become a hallucinatory rawness inside me. … The arid country was a clean slate. Its absolute indifference steadied me.” (p. 4)

Ehrlich’s descriptions of Wyoming’s landscape, animals, weather and people are unfalteringly honest – and through that honesty her love for the state and its inhabitants reveals itself. This is her personal account of a lifestyle and a state that few know. (This choosing of the lesser-knowns seems to be a trend of hers – she later spent years in Greenland, portraying its desolation and icy beauty and developing solidarity with the Inuit people and their diminishing culture.) From Wyoming’s starkness and simplicity emerges a deep connection to the land. A combination of resilience and stubbornness ties Wyoming’s residents to the state.

The title of her book rings true. This “wide-open country” (Ehrlich, 1985, p. 60) where she can see for “hundreds of miles in every direction” (p. 60) provides just the anti-nurturing nurturing that Ehrlich’s wounded heart needs. Judith Moore wrote for the New York Times: “‘The Solace of Open Spaces’ depends upon none of the cheap effects – purple sunset, the face of God in still water – that breed what theologians call ‘cheap grace,’ salvation too easily won.” (1985, n.p.) Ehrlich’s grief and suffering gradually ease, but “what Wyoming gives her comes hard won.” (1985, n.p.) After meeting and marrying a man whom she met at a John Wayne film festival in Cody, Wy., she wrote, “‘here’s to the end of loneliness,’ … not believing such a thing could come true. But it did, and nothing prepared me for the sense of peace I felt.” (Ehrlich, 1985, p. 87)

Ehrlich devotes a significant portion of “Solace” to Wyoming’s people and their complexity, and through that portrayal she gives commentary on all people: “We have only to look at the houses we build to see how we build against space, the way we drink against pain and loneliness. We fill up space as if it were a pie shell, with things whose opacity further obstructs our ability to see what is already there.” (1985, p. 15) She uses nature to make comparisons: “We are often like rivers: careless and forceful, timid and dangerous, lucid and muddied, eddying, gleaming, still.” (p. 84) And she celebrates animals’ ability to co-exist with humans: “Because they have the ability to read our involuntary tics and scents, we’re transparent to them and thus exposed – we’re finally ourselves.” (p. 64)

 Wyoming’s population at the time was only 470,000, and loneliness and its effect on people is a recurring theme: “Men become hermits; women go mad. Cabin fever explodes into suicides.” (Ehrlich, 1985, p. 13). Wyoming is a land of extremes, which extends to the human relationships. Isolation and loneliness are countered by “teamwork on cold nights during calving … [that] creates a profound camaraderie.” (p. 73)

The lushness of her language creates images that are almost touchably vivid: “Thoughts, bright as frostfall, skate through our brains. In winter, consciousness looks like an etching.” (Ehrlich, 1985, p. 74) Ehrlich absorbs the land’s simplicity and comfort, and her pen spreads steady respect on the page like honey. “She weaves an inspiring and memorable relationship between the individual and nature. … [This relationship] has long been influential in the world of writing; Ehrlich explores this bond in a new light through the power of writing itself.” (Scowsmith, 2013, n.p.) Wyoming isn’t just an expansive swath of land that we experience with our eyes. It’s a place we feel, breathe, smell, taste and absorb, with Ehrlich as our guide.

People in Wyoming adapt to the environment and work with it because there is no choice. “Nature is not something which the inhabitants of SOS live with, nature is something they have to endure.” (Jalali, 2005, n.p.) It dictates the lives of everyone and everything in the book. Ehrlich exposes the reader to nature in its extremes. We feel the bitter cold and the oppressive heat, revel in the satisfaction of a hard day’s work, and witness the imprint of man and domestic animals on the parched earth. Ehrlich writes, “The water I ushered over hard ground becomes one drink of grass.” (1985, p. 90) She shapes our perception of the environment, and argues for using its resources ethically. In an interview Ehrlich said, “We are entering the Anthropocene, a time when the changing climate will cause much devastation. … Soon our planet will not be the same, and human survival will be difficult.” (T., 2013., n.p.) Through literature, she shines a light on the places that need saving.

I first read “Solace” more than 20 years ago, and reading it again feels like being pulled into a full-body embrace. Newsday wrote “Ehrlich’s gorgeous prose is as expansive as a Wyoming vista.” (1985, n.p.), and that description couldn’t be more true. In describing the transition from autumn to winter, Ehrlich writes, “We feel what the Japanese call ‘aware’ – an almost untranslatable word meaning something  like ‘beauty tinged with sadness.’” (Ehrlich, 1985, p. 127) What I felt reading “Solace” was ‘aware.’

References

Ehrlich, G. (1985). The Solace of Open Spaces. New York: Viking Penguin Inc.

Jalali, S. (2005). Oppressing Nature: A Study of Gretel Ehrlich’s The Solace of Open Spaces. Retrieved October 27, 2014, from http://lnu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:205169/FULLTEXT01

Moore, J. (1985, December 1). What a Mountain Is. New York Times. Retrieved October 27, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/01/books/what-a-mountain-is.html

Scowsmith, K. (2013, August 12). The Immensity of Small Things: A Literary Review of Gretel Ehrlich’s Solace of Open Spaces. The Haberdasher. Retrieved October 27, 2014, from http://lehab.org/2013/08/12/the-immensity-of-small-things-a-literary-review-of-gretel-ehrlichs-solace-of-open-spaces/

T., J. (2013, March 18) The Q&A: Gretel Ehrlich Embracing Impermanence. The Economist. Retrieved October 27, 2014, from http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/03/qa-gretel