1“ D e a r W e s t V i r g i n i a ” – a n o n - fi c t i o n e s s a y b y A n nP a n c a k e , o r i g i n a l l y p u b l i s h e dh t t p : / / w w w . s o u v e n i r l i t . c o m / a n n - p a n c a k eDear West Virginia,Place that made me, and made my parents, and theirs, and theirs, andtheirs, and theirs. I write you from Seattle, Washington, three weeks afterthe election and three decades after leaving you. A note of thanks for themost recent gift you gave.In early October, West Virginia, you placed a picture in my mind. A slenderarc of deer leg, curving to an elegant hoof. Most but not all of the fleshdecayed; a little fur left at the fetlock. Although the image came to me inSeattle, I knew that the leg lay in West Virginia, could tell that by the deadoak leaves on the ground. I saw the leg like I’ve seen, heard, felt that spring-fed reservoir of images, sounds, scents, people, stories you have given me,West Virginia, all these thirty years away. And what kind of writer would Ihave been, West Virginia, without you? Would I have been a writer withoutyou?If I hadn’t grown up surrounded by land always, land around my shoulders,land up over my head, hill, hollow, ridge, creekbed, riverbank, draw, thatland pushing up into my throat, word-birthing land. What kind of writerwould I have been, West Virginia, without your language, the accent itselffeels close to the ground, an English soft and loamy, language I can wraparound, language that will play with me, easy in my mouth, language thatnever binds me as so often “standard” “proper” English does.What kind of writer would I have been (would I have been a writer?) if Icouldn’t walk on you and hear a story, the sounds first, then the pictures,then the narrative itself, like beats from the ground. When I cannot hearland anywhere else, not in Washington, or New Mexico, or Japan, orPennsylvania, or Samoa, or Thailand, or North Carolina, all those mute-to-meplaces that I’ve lived, no matter how I’ve ear-cocked asked-them tried. WhenI can hear you, West Virginia, without even having my body on you. I canhear you just by dreaming myself back to you, just by imagining myself intoyou earnestly enough.
