In the fall of 1993, I went to Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky on a college class trip. We barely knew each other: young design students immersing ourselves in the nuance of the landscape for a week or so. This was the first of what would be four years of design studios together; the first overnights of a fall tradition that continues to this day. Yes, we still reconvene, now with families in tow, every year in the fall, to reminisce about college and time since, to talk about our careers, some of which have remained firmly anchored in design, some of which have transformed over the years.
The trip included a single overnight expedition (that’s perhaps too grand a term for it) down into one of the deep river-cut valleys that lace that part of Kentucky. We set off in the morning mist on a flat trail, which soon began to descend beneath the plateau. It got cooler as we dropped into the valley and soon we could hear the limpid trickle of the fall-docile creek.
You know what this essay is about, since you’ve presumably read the title, and if you know anything about Wendell Berry, you know where this is going. These wooded cuts are his place.
Finally from the crease of the ravine I am following there begins to come the trickling and splashing of water. There is a great restfulness in the sounds these small streams make; they are going down as fast as they can, but their sounds seem leisurely and idle, as if produced like gemstones with the greatest patience and care.