Nacho Land

There is another thing that bothers me about the concepts of “home” and “sense of place”: Do we even have a right to claim any understanding of the landscape, let alone ownership of it? What qualifies as home when you have stolen the land? How do you, personally, and we, collectively, reconcile our participation in the damage done, or at least halt the continuing destruction and disrespect? First, we have to accept that we are part of colonialism, without shrinking and shaming. Somewhere between illicit pride and Christian Nationalism, and paralyzing regret over what our ancestors started, lies a path to humility and true progress.

IndigenousPeoplesResources.com

With all due respect to Woody Guthrie, this land is not your land. It belongs to Indigenous peoples who occupied the continent prior to European settlement (read “theft”).By this measure, none of us who are White can call the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, or any number of other countries “home.” We cannot say we have reverence for a “sense of place” in our nature writing when our residency has no legitimacy.

Before Independence, and even after it, for that matter, parts of the United States were settled by empires other than the British. The French and Spanish had significant territories, of course. The Dutch also had a presence. In the southern U.S. in particular, someone of British descent might be third in line for claims to ownership.

It should b evident by now that empire and colonialism have never benefited the land, its ecosystems, or even the vast majority of settlers themselves. Instead, those manifestos have punished and exterminated Indigenous peoples, enslaved others, and extracted natural resources, to advance the wealth and power of a select few.

Meanwhile, capitalism has gone hand-in-hand with colonialism, promoting the idea, in theory, that one can achieve private individual ownership of property, including land. Public ownership of land varies greatly from state to state. I grew up in Oregon, where federal lands account for 53% of all acreage. State ownership adds another three percent. I now live in Kansas, where 98% of land is in private hands. This does not necessarily translate to ownership by Kansas residents. Between 2015 and 2023, absentee ownership of Kansas agricultural lands increased by three percent. Kansans owned 71% in 2015, but only 68% in 2023.

Increasingly, foreign ownership of land in the U.S. is on the rise. This is especially true for mining companies in Canada. Absentee ownership in the industrial sector has frequently resulted in severe environmental damage, and often increases in chronic illness in surrounding communities.

In urban locations, private equity is now precluding home ownership by the average citizen. Private equity firms outbid other real estate entities with lucrative cash offers, buying houses in bulk, to be rented out. Again, these corporate enterprises are usually absentee owners, often with little interest in maintenance and upkeep of their widely-dispersed properties.

It is no coincidence that the people telling us that land has no value until humans build something on it, or pave it over, or plow it under, are the same people telling us that our country would be better off if we killed the homeless, eradicated the LGBTQ+ community, deported immigrants (undocumented or not, apparently), and celebrated White supremacy. They benefit from culture wars that distract us from solving real problems, allowing them to profit beyond their wildest dreams. We know better. Reparations look a lot like land back, and fair housing for all.

It is obvious, from science and spirituality, that the Earth owns us, not the other way around. It is interesting that so-called pagan religions have more of a grasp of this than their Christian counterparts. In order to effect lasting change, I would argue that we need to invite Indigenous people into our public and private institutions, then promote them into positions of leadership, authority, and power. When we have more Indigenous leaders in our collective spaces, we can begin to learn the ways of properly living on the land, and engaging fairly with all citizens.

Sources: Dehlinger, Katie Micik. 2023. “Minding Ag’s Business: Land Ownership and Foreign Investment Trends in Kansas,” Progressive Farmer.
Mayyasi, Alex. 2025. “Here’s what happens when private equity buys homes in your neighborhood,” Planet Money Newsletter (NPR).

Home Is...?

I recently posted on social media the assertion that “Home is not a place, it’s a time,” adding “That is why you can’t go home again.” The responses, few that there were, suggested more intangible definitions, such as “a feeling,” and “a memory.” Someone said “….a smell, a taste….” It may be complicated, but I detest the romanticism associated with the idea of home. I am a slow nomad.

In the traditional sense, geographically and temporally, my first home was Portland, Oregon, in the nineteen sixties through the mid-1980s. If this evokes your idea of paradise, then good for you. My reality was that of an only child with two parents who frequently fought verbally, and occasional property damage by my father. I also remember seemingly lifeless coniferous forests under overcast skies, and rain. Home was a place where I lived against my will.

Work eventually took me to Cincinnati, Ohio. I remember storms, one of which flooded my apartment. I recall the self-inflicted trauma of being fired, or asked to resign, by multiple employers because I was never properly socialized. Cincinnati was the home where I confronted my tumultuous childhood, and curbed my drinking.

From Cincinnati, I took a job in rural southern Missouri. The employer downsized eight months after I got there. I decided that my being there, however briefly, was less about the work of fabricating exhibits for museums and nature centers, and more about gently suggesting to my coworkers that they use something in addition to religion to craft the fabric of their lives.

On a whim I moved to Tucson, Arizona. I bottomed out financially, and it took five years, in my forties, to establish quality friendships. Ultimately, a temp assignment turned into something permanent, mere blocks from my apartment; and I got my first book-writing opportunity. The office eventually closed, but by then I had met my partner, Heidi.

Moving to Colorado Springs to be with her felt more like home than prior locations. I got the benefit of instant friends from her workplace at the zoo, and found additional friends through other networks.

Heidi retired from the zoo after 26 years, but she probably should have done so sooner. Keeper work takes a toll on the body. Meanwhile, the rising cost of living in the Springs meant we could not afford a home in a better neighborhood. I agreed to her suggestion that we move to Leavenworth, Kansas, her childhood hometown, where her parents still reside.

Four years on, and I still have no friends that I see regularly, aside from the in-laws. I assume everyone here is a Republican cult member unless proven otherwise. I want my old friends back. Leavenworth demographics skew heavily to the White, geriatric end of the spectrum. The town does have young people, but no collective energy. Leavenworth is prisons, the military (Ft. Leavenworth), and churches. At least we have a house we own free and clear, and a couple of yards.

What is the overall theme here, then? Misery? Trauma? Isolation? Mere dissatisfaction? I abhor sentimentality attached to the idea of home. Nostalgia can screw itself. Portland was not a bad place to be at the time I lived there. Today, the traffic is worse than Los Angeles. Before I left for Tucson, a coworker told me that he lived there in the 1980s and loved it. In the early 2000s, I did not. Timing is everything, and the idea of place cannot divorce itself from that. A place does not stay stagnant, locked in some kind of Neverland. It grows up, and is usually the worse for it. Colorado Springs continues to sprawl because the powerful and wealthy insist that the high prairie I love is worthless until somebody can profit by putting in a subdivision or an industrial park.

I think, for me, home has been a series of gratifying, if not occasionally euphoric, punctuations in an otherwise unsatisfying existence. The places I have the fondest memories of were fleeting destinations, experienced over weeks or weekends, with friends of the highest order. I can sometimes put myself mentally back in those places; or on a beach in the Caribbean that I’ve invented in my mind, listening to calypso or jazz fusion, and drifting off to sleep.

Man vs. Appliance

The other day my wife finished showering and informed me that the water heater must be malfunctioning and I would need to address the problem the next day while she was at work. This brought up all kinds of insecurities about my manhood and marital obligations, but I ultimately triumphed, thanks to the support of even more....women.

There it is, striking fear in the hearts of men!

There is an awful lot of truth behind that old adage that behind every good man is a good woman, and I might add "often several women." Siblings, other relatives, friends, social media acquaintances, they all can be encouraging in your time of need. I honestly had not anticipated the account of the water heater to take this direction, but it is absolutely where it should go, to the heart of human relationships, self-confidence, and lifelong learning.

Our first approach to the water heater problem was to solicit recommendations for a plumber via local Facebook friends. My plea was answered in part by female friends who advocated doing the repair ourselves. Ok, that would be me, then, while my spouse earns our household some income. I do not do well with the handyman thing, but in my defense I spent my teenage years without a father on a daily basis. My folks divorced when I was age eleven, and I saw my father every other weekend. He lived in apartments where repairs were done by contractors.

"Just look up how to repair a water heater on Youtube. You'll be fine" said a couple of handywomen on my "friends" list. They added that expiring heating elements were usually the source of the problem. My wife went about finding some videos and e-mailed links to two of them. I viewed them the next morning and while things always appear straightforward in those how-to short films, they *never* represent the exact model or circumstance that you will encounter with your own appliance. My nerves were still fraying.

As luck would have it, Heidi was carpooling to work this day, so I had our car at my disposal to fetch the necessary hardware and tools. Only problem was that I had not driven but once in roughly the last five months, so I was a little edgy about that prospect, too. I did find the courage to get behind the wheel, and was not as white-knuckled as I feared I would be. I even managed to find some helpful people at the hardware/lumberyard/garden supply/nursery store once I arrived. About forty minutes and forty-three dollars later, I had what I needed.

You have got to be kidding!

Our water heater is a short, squat cylinder located on a cement pad....in the crawlspace under our townhouse unit. You will notice that the panels I needed to access the heating elements are on the "dark side," not illuminated by the single bulb in the crawlspace. Also, the drain for the tank is about three inches from the floor of the crawlspace. I first attached a hose and ran it into a bucket, but the effectiveness of that strategy dried up quickly. So, I took to wedging another bucket under the spigot, filling it as far as I could without overflow, and dumping it into another bucket. About two hours or so later I decided I had probably drained the water heater pretty well.

Now to disarm this water-bomb

Note to self: Think you have drained the appliance below the level of the bottom element? You haven't. Black water blew out the opening once occupied by the withdrawn heating element. I quickly rammed the new one into the void. Success, with only mild, wet, annoyance. The upper element offered no such surprise, and the tank filled in next to no time. Heated water was available again in roughly two hours. Meanwhile, my body is still recovering from trip after trip lugging a bucket with at least four gallons of dirty water out of the crawlspace and into the parking lot to dump it. Drain, dump, repeat. Still, before I started, I had visions of Heidi finding my smoldering, electrocuted corpse under the house when she got home.

While I suspect that the true cost of this DIY exercise would have included renting a pump to properly drain the water heater, mission accomplished. Self-confidence was increased as well, though I still do not look forward to the next appliance breakdown. The real bottom line is the silver lining of learning, growing in "handymanship," and gratitude for friends who have confidence in you even if you lack it in yourself.

The Dust Bunny National Wildlife Refuge

I am not a messy housekeeper. Instead, I am promoting biodiversity. Hey, where will all those molds and mildews go when disinfectants have scoured everywhere else? Why not spare the dust mites the vacuum, at least for awhile? We are helpless to exclude nature completely from our lives anyway, so acceptance may be in our best mental and philosophical interest.

Obsessive-compulsive personalities need no help in exaggerating the threat of “germs” and other health hazards, real or imagined, but the rest of us need substantial coaxing. The commercial media are only too happy to oblige, bombarding us with advertisements for all manner of caustic chemicals, air filters, and disposable cleaning gadgets. Since by themselves microbes are relatively innocuous, they must be digitally morphed into something more menacing, anthropomorphosized into growling, English-speaking monsters that make overt threats to life and limb. It would be comical were it not so crass.

Perhaps I am blessed with a good immune system, but I have decided that the threat from bacteria in the bath and kitchen is grossly overrated. As an entomologist, I have known for a long time that cockroaches are, at least at normal population levels, little more than a cosmetic nuisance, a reminder that you are leaving too many crumbs about, and not doing the dishes frequently enough. I approach fast food restaurants with far more trepidation than I do my own crusty basin and range. At my present apartment in Tucson, Arizona, a Mediterranean house gecko once happily devoured the German cockroaches. How cool is that, having a food chain on the premises that does not involve you and the refrigerator?

Mind you, I am not one to live in total filth. When the opportunity to entertain others presents itself, I do make an effort to cull the herds of dust bunnies that normally roam freely. As stewards of real estate indoors and out, we do have an obligation to “wildlife management.”

It is not a stretch to consider a dust bunny a living creature. They seem to reproduce quickly, lending a serious argument to the theory of “spontaneous generation.” They even come with their own parasites, as it were: dust mites. There are at least two types. One feeds primarily on the tiny flakes of dead skin cells that we humans (and our pets, also) shed constantly. The other dust mite preys on the former dust mite.

My bathroom tends to breed its own flora and fauna. Molds and mildews are rather problematic, even in an ostensibly dry climate like Tucson’s. Still more astounding, I have found that tiny creatures called springtails regularly appear in my shower. These are certifiably moisture-loving organisms. I would not have thought that even daily showers would create such a hospitable habitat for something so dependent on water. Oddly, I rarely see moth flies, those ubiquitous little flying furballs usually seen perched on the side of the bathroom sink, or a wall. Their larvae develop in the residue of the drain trap, and probably do a better job of preventing clogs than any dose of Draino. Now and then I see root gnats, little black flies that inevitably commit suicide by diving into the soapdish.

The kitchen must be domestic ecosystem central. After all, it is where the food is prepared. I am constantly astonished by the ability of mold to overtake refrigerated bread, invade the last dregs of the sour cream and salsa, and almost instantaneously rot a tomato. I love bananas, but must share them with the pomace flies (“fruit flies” to most folks, but a different creature entirely) that hover around the bunch. Knowing that these flies have contributed greatly to our fundamental understanding of genetics makes it easier to tolerate their appearance at breakfast.

As my rent goes up annually, and my wages stagnate, it occurs to me that it may be time to seek public assistance. Considering the menagerie of organisms I sustain and manage, it seems that compensation is due. Perhaps it is time to apply for federal recognition of my apartment as a wildlife refuge. Depending on your definition of “dependent,” I could probably take a tax write-off already.

I am convinced that if more people felt honored to host a diversity of living things in their own homes, sheds, yards, gardens and garages, then there would be a collectively different attitude towards biodiversity in general, one that embraced all manner of creatures. A true reverence for life does not exclude things that are ugly, or mischievous, or that are simply products of our own fears and biases. Removing the stigma of an untidy abode, a weedy lawn, or a yard planted with mundane but native flora would go a long way to improving the health of the Earth as a whole.