People(s) of the Creek I
Anthropocentrism makes no sense in a centerless world. So why center this post around people? Because our species loves reading about itself -- and readers are wanted here. Evidence of past humans appears all around our farm on Potomac Creek. What people have left behind, I think, is more suggestive of itinerant than of fixed or stable lives. Accepting this human transience nudges us a bit closer towards seeing the Creek on its own terms. *** Of course, itinerant "come heres" still arrive in Stafford County every day. The road in front of the farm was recently widened to handle the rising traffic. That's when my older son discovered this gleaming quartz arrowhead. He spotted the artifact -- snapped in half, but still finely detailed -- in the bulldozer's scrape. Such artifacts often rise to the surface of local fields and creek beds. Most "arrowheads" like this one are actually knife blades, scrapers,
