Karma of Place

I've tried hard in my blog to write not about the day-to-day of my life, but the rumblings of my mind over random periods of time. Somewhat independently of me, my mind seems to ask itself questions that pop up and progress, stagnate or regress. At times, the ones that regress confound me by how short their stay was, leaving no trace. Chloe, seeing my furrowed brow in the rear-view mirror of the car this morning, asks "Maman, why you look mad?" and I think "I'm not mad. What was I thinking about again?" At other times I don't know why my brain seems to obsessively rehash the same words or the same questions. So far, in my blog, I've liked writing up those threads of thought that have yielded something discrete or complete, however small, because those are satisfying. But honestly, there are a number of broken threads and endlessly tangled ones in there too, and I thought I should start to bring those to the light. Much harder to write about, these exercises in ambivalence and incompleteness have a life of their own and must be grabbing a hold of me for some reason or other.
I believe places have their own karma, intrinsically related to their own characteristics but also deeply imbued by the characters who have lived there and the dramas they lived through at the time. I claim no abilities as a medium, and I don't know if I believe in the supernatural or not as a result (how would I know, having not experienced anything supernatural?) and I don't even think you need to have supernatural interests or abilities to think that places have a karma about them. Even without a tour guide, and without any historical knowledge, wouldn't something shake you inside were you to visit Buchenwald, Choeung Ek or My Lai? Of course, it's very hard to pretend we DON'T know something, but at the very least, I think each place invites a cusiosity about its life and its past that speaks to you as clearly as a real-live person.
Growing up in Asia, I often found little temples, altars and odd incense sticks tucked away in back rooms, tree forks or cracks in the sidewalk even. People might have monotheistic faiths but still pay homage to a local force, much akin to the families of accident victims placing little remembrances at ill-fated ditches and intersections. In my region of France, Vendee, giant crosses with or without a Christ dot the landscape called "calvaires", that recount the spot that crusades, pilgrimages or missions left from. If you grew up in Scouting, you learn about leaving tracking signs and cairns while hiking, and many permanent trails in the world are marked by small yellow-and-red marks in paint along the way. In the middle of Provence you can see where the Romans left a highway, with chariot ruts 2000 years old as clear as the ones that cross the American Prairie. Shepherds, nomads, vandals, certainly humans have left marks everywhere. Very few places in the world haven't borne witness to some human drama, so everyplace has a reverence about it, even without physical trace. Sure, even without human habitation, natural habitats have a life and a spell all their own, but I'm not as spell-bound by valleys once filled with dinosaurs as I am by those once filled with encampments. I do think humans are a very special species, and our relationship to the land leaves an emotional residue behind.
Why do I spend so much energy trying to define these beliefs? Because since coming to NC, I've tried to tap into the karma and emotional life of this place, and I often meet contradiction or impassiveness. In California, I felt a continual inner dialogue with the pasts of Native Americans, Chinese rail workers, Spanish missionaries, Russian fur traders, Vietnamese boat people who lived there or came through. I lived in California for 16 years, and came of age there, and certainly these things take time, probably entire lifetime(s). But I find the emotional quality of my current place frustrating in a way that I can't easily describe. I sense that this place wants to be be known and yet keeps you at arm's length at the same time.
Certainly the question of race is part of the puzzle, and the Civil War and its aftermath are tied in. Every town or city here has a monument to Confederate soldiers. Some are prominently located and actively maintained while others have clearly been moved to back corners and left to disintegrate, but I always feel myself called to seek them, even though they make me wince like a car accident by the side of the road. And while segregation is now two generations removed, formerly segregated neighborhoods are still identifiable if you look. Writing this, I start to see that the missing element is the sensation of trust. Why do some landscapes inspire trust and others make the hairs on the nape of your neck stand up?