"The Solace of Open Spaces" by Gretel Ehrlich

I felt that there were a lot of open spaces in Ehrlich's essay "The Solace of Open Spaces". Spaces that she could have filled in, I mean. While reading the whole piece, I felt as if I were holding onto a very thin thread that kept me going along with the rest of the essay. But barely. There were several times where I felt I was just hanging by this thread and at some points, I just wanted to let go.

I must admit, though, that the topics on which she writes about are interesting, but the way she goes about writing them is not. She approaches the subject on which she writes about as if it is dirty dishwater and her task is to dip her hand in and pull the plug from the sink. She doesn't seem to want to get her hands wet with her essays. In her essay "The Solace of Open Spaces" there were quite a few people she mentioned, but I felt no attachment to them whatsoever, and I felt that I should have been attached because she spent a lot of her time working with and collaborating with these people. These essays are not too intimate and I wonder if that is her technique, though. I'm not judging or despising her work. I am keeping an open mind, or so I'd like to think. The word solace has the prefix sol- which comes from the Latin solus meaning "alone" or "single". The idea of open spaces allows ideas of vastness and overwhelming to enter the mind. There is all this space for the mind to move around in this essay. It's like driving a bumper car with no one else to bump into... so it's kind of tedious.

What I did find interesting was the sociological information she shared within her essays. Some of this information is coupled with a quick anecdote that allows intimacy, but as soon as I begin to enjoy it, it is taken away. Here is an interesting excerpt from "The Solace of Empty Spaces" where she talks about how the landscape reflects on the people who live within it:

Conversation goes on in what sounds like a private code; a few phrases imply a complex of meanings. Asking directions, you get a curious list of details. While trailing sheep I was told to "ride up to that kinda upturned rock, follow the pink wash, turn left at the dump, and then you''ll see the water hole." One friend told his wife on roundup to "turn at the salt lick and the dead cow," which turned out to be a scattering of bones and no salt lick at all.

In this excerpt, interesting sociological information is shared about the people who live in this landscape and a brief, amusing anecdote compliments it. This is one of a few feel-good moments in this essay, for most of her writing isn't really humorous. She seems to have a very serious tone throughout her essays. In her essay "About Men" she gets serious about how the media portrays the cowboy compared to what a cowboy really is. She could have gone into better detail to show the distinction between the two, if you ask me. I thought more personal experience...dialogue, anecdotes, relationships...using those ideas and techniques would give her more credibility as a woman who knows what a real cowboy is.

It isn't that I don't like her writing. It's just that the style of writing that I would use or admire is different. I like the topics and ideas in her essays, but in my opinion, they could be portrayed so much better if she had manifested more personal experiences and emotion.