HABITATby dar williams
ing to live with each other
and the land, and discovering our organic selves. But it was easier to
invent ideas
than to actually experience
habitat as it's defined: the natural home or environment of an organism.
Fem-
inism helped me find genuine
connections. Feminist friends looked for ways of grounding abstract ideals
in actual lifestyles and
dynamic friendships. Modern-dance teachers showed me the volumetric beauty
of
a body moving through space.
I was taken off the two-dimensional grid of expectations and ideals, and
en-
couraged to engage with
a tangible environment-even though I didn't know what I was looking for
yet.
Feminism, however, also
turned up a red herring. To reconnect with the land, with patterns, rhythms,
and love, I looked to the
promise of ritual. These things we call rituals, from solstice circles
to dishwash-
ing, were supposed to lead
me to a less self-conscious, less intellectually defined space, but instead,
they
allowed my brain and not
my heart to decide whether I had experienced something I yearned for: a
mean-
ingful sense of place. Ritual
became another opportunity to assess my life before I'd even lived it.
And to
be assessed by others. If
your dish rack looks like the book cover for Zen and Simplicity (sunlight
shot
through sand-cast glasses
and glinting off handmade ceramic plates), dishwashing is a ritual. If
it doesn't,
well ... we're not sure
what to call it. Try being mindful in the moment. That should help. It
didn't.
Where I discovered meaning,
I can only describe as habitat. To me, there is a nonthreatening, playful
aspect to the word, as if
habitat is merely the dance of habit. And, true to form, my habitat ultimately
de-
fined itself by defining
me.
One day I was leaving for
a tour, and I felt deeply sad. My friend Kate had lived in my town for
the
summer and now she was leaving.
She and my partner and I had made big dinners all through July. We'd
hung laundry, visited farm
stands, done errands, and watered the flowers. And now it was over, and
what I had been seeing as
these pain-in-the-ass activities ("Shouldn't I be doing something more
mean-
ingful than this?") had
culminated in an unmistakable sense of place and meaning. I finally saw
a clear
picture of myself-though
sunburnt and frazzled-in my mind's eye. And that's all there is! I look
out
and see I've got what my
friends call a case of the "Vermont porch." It's cluttered with stuff,
and in my
mind, cluttered with meaning.
There's a large bench, rubber boots, trowels, jog bras on the clothes rack,
a badly coiled hose, and
a half-resuscitated hanging plant. I am myself, not the concept of myself.
This is
a place filled with the
dailiness of my life. I am left with the simple truth: this house, the
gardens, these
friendships, my town. The
intensity of my feelings for them has emerged from the routines and require-
ments of just living in
a space. In this habitat, I happened to find myself and what I really love.
Dar Williams is currently
working on a follow-up to her most recent album, "End of Summer."
© Ms. OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 1999