I cannot expect to know the true names of animals, or how to call them to me, or the proper way to carry their tongues near my heart. What I really want--others confess this longing too--is for the land to possess me, to name me. Thus the compulsion to recite all the names inscribed in the field guides, even though the world does not require me to unscroll the register of names, to labor at Adam's task, to trace the handwriting scrawled across the universe. But I try to remember...a(n) [paraphrased] observation by Northrop Frye: "People spend a lot of time trying to figure out who they are. The real question is not who am I, but where is here?" And so I answer:"

-Sherry Simpson, "Natural History, Or What Happens When We're Not Looking"