Rootedness

To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul. It is also one of the hardest to define. - Simone Weil, Europe 1943

When I first read Simone Weil's The Need for Roots in 2005 I knew I had stumbled upon one of those rare gems of human wisdom. Three years earlier I had moved to Los Angeles after spending five years in Blacksburg Virginia and growing up in Herkimer New York. The combined populations of these two rural counties totals 150,000; Los Angeles's population is close to 10,000,000. In addition to the dramatic difference in numbers of people there were cultural, philosophical, and environmental distinctions between LA and my two former East Coast habitats. These differences frequently led to a sense of rootlessness during my early years there.

Tree roots common in Southern California.
Photo courtesy of Carla Kimball, 2009

Complicating my absorption into the Los Angeles soil was my own sense of a less than full commitment to California. On one hand, as our years living in LA grew in number, my wife and I felt increasingly at home. At the same time there was always a gnawing sense that we were not and would never feel completely at home there. This sense was particularly strong because of the close ties we enjoy to both our families. And our two final years in LA living with small children ultimately compelled us to fulfill our need for roots back on the East Coast.

After living six months back in Virginia we just recently moved into a 'permanent' home (more on that as we renovate it in the coming weeks). It is the first time we have owned a house in over three years and the first time in our married life of seven years that we feel truly committed to a place. I am excited to see what the next few years feel like as we participate in the community in Central Virginia. At the same time I also have occasional reservations (uneasiness?) about my role in creating a sense of home, rootedness, and place for my own rapidly growing children. Perhaps this is due to the the difficulty Weil says we have with defining rootedness; perhaps it is because my own long term sense of root-less-ness leaves me without a clear sense of how to help someone else feel rooted.

A human being has roots by virtue of his or her real, active, and natural participation in the life of a community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations for the future. - Simone Weil