Reflections on Place | Ellie Joye ‘25

People often say there’s a difference between a house and a home. I think the same idea applies to the difference between space and place. A space is just a physical location – somewhere people interact. But a place is something more. It isn’t just physical or visible; it can feel vividly real. The places we inhabit shape who we are as we move through life – people live, grow, and find meaning in places.

Place is the white, stony cliffs of Ireland, steeped in history. It’s the coffee shop you return to again and again. But it’s also something you find in people as much as in structures. Place is the look of a loved one as they pull you into a familiar embrace. At its core, place is both the foundation and the product of shared human experience.

I often struggle to find my own “place”—some sense of consistency in what feels like an unsettled world. I love to travel, always moving from one place to another, and each destination leaves its mark on me. And yet, no matter where I go, I don’t always feel the deep, resounding sense of home. I know I’m not alone in this – many people drift from place to place without ever finding one to truly call their own. That feeling often leaves me restless, always searching for the next place that might finally feel right.

Wendell Berry challenges this kind of restlessness. He encourages us to step away from the world’s constant motion and instead find stillness in nature, where everything works as it should. He captures this idea in his poem The Peace of Wild Things:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Berry reminds us to seek peace in the rhythms of nature rather than in constant movement that often feels like chaos. I think about this often. I worry about graduation, about starting a career, about stock market crashes, about the world my future children will live in – about all the tragedies, both fresh and still to come. But Berry calls us to something different: to the grace and stillness that I so often trade for a busier schedule.

But can words like stillness, silence, and peace really describe modern life? Am I willing to let go of the constant search for my place in the world?

Maybe I’ll wrestle with that question for the rest of my life. But lately, I’ve started to realize that maybe there isn’t just one perfect place for me. Maybe my place is the yellow house in Charlottesville. Maybe it’s in the familiar smiles of my hometown friends. Maybe it’s in the airplane that whisks me away to my next destination. Or maybe, just maybe, place is wherever I find the most peace.