Elizabeth Andrew writes as an act of connecting to her surroundings both geographically and spiritually. Capturing the land of her childhood backyard--the Hudson river valley and her spiritual home and new house in Minneapolis, Minnesota, she leads the reader on the quest to feel at home with one's self and one's beliefs. With this common and pressing goal, Andrew frames her reflections in the lath-and-plaster language of a house, the cluttered pantry, the loose-screened porch, the dim bedroom, traversing the interior realms of doubt, memory, imagination, and a prayer-a-private world, all irrevocably tied to her broader community. With echoes of Thoreau and Proust, Andrew's essays speak of sweet melancholy, that of human existence our land.