Your body as landscape in your life story

Our bodies consist of thousands of intricate systems and are miraculous vessels with which we experience life. As our bodies all differ, so do the landscapes we perceive around us. When we describe them in our life story or memoir, we can use landscape metaphors to do so.

BODY AS LANDSCAPE IN LITERATURE

The metaphorical use of body imagery in relation to landscape is fundamental in the Western world. The Renaissance metaphor that understood the earth to be modelled on the human body has generally been regarded as a one-way relation, ‘landscape as body’. In imaginative literature at least, the reverse relation, ‘body as landscape,’ is of frequent occurrence.

GEOGRAPHY AND THE BODY

No part of our world can be understood in isolation.

Geography is more than memorizing names and places. It organises space in much the same way that historians organize time. To help organize space, geographers are concerned with asking three important questions about things in the world: Where is it? Why is it there? What are the consequences of its being there?

When you write your life story, work with these three questions.

BODILY TERRITORIES: LUST AND LANDSCAPE

Our bodies, or bodies all over the world, have become contested territories. When we write our unique stories, it makes an impact because the story of an individual, set in a certain time and place, can convey the essence of what is happening more powerfully than a history lesson.

“As the dynamics of globalization continue to displace bodies around the world and deterritorialize its subjects, the relevance of land and landscape as a potent source for cultural identity, nationalist aspirations, and alternative post-nationalist subjectivities continues to grow,” says Tealia DeBerry.

EXAMPLE: FROM THE INSIDE OUT – MADDIE MORTIMER

“Today I might trace the rungs of her larynx or tap at her trachea like the bones of a xylophone or cook up or undo some great horrors of my own because here is the thing about bodies: they are impossibly easy to prowl, without anyone suspecting a thing. Until, of course, they do. And then, of course, they aren’t.

When Lia finds out that her cancer is back, she tries to keep the landscapes of her past, her present and her body separate. But bodies are porous, unpredictable places. Lia’s story is told, in part, by the very thing that is killing her; a gleeful and malevolent voice that shape-shifts through her systems, learning her life from the inside-out. We come to understand the people that have shaped her: a daughter, navigating the horrors of the playground; a husband, struggling to maintain a sense of self as everything falls apart; a regretful mother making up for lost time; and a troubled former lover who belongs to Lia’s past, but won’t stay there.

In turn they each take up their place in the changing landscape of Lia’s body, at the centre of which dances our restless narrator and a boy nicknamed ‘Red’; the chemotherapy that is Lia’s last hope. Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies is a story of coming-of-age at the end of a life – a heartbreaking tale of desire, love and forgiveness, a wild and fierce journey through one woman’s body.”

YOUR BODY AS LANDSCAPE IN YOUR LIFE STORY

From descriptive metaphors, immersive musings, and intimate reflections, we remain fascinated by the human form. Research as widely as possible during your writing process and remember that, as a writing coach, I am here to support you writing your life story.