Strange as this Weather Has Been

The connection between identity and place is a key theme. In her youth, Lace fought against identifying herself by her surroundings. While she was raised in Yellowroot hollow by a mother who venerated the verdant woods and hills, Lace never saw herself as part of it. Instead, she looked to magazines and movies, and she identified with what she saw in them. Since she didn’t see anyone in the media that looked like the West Virginians she knew, she began to see West Virginia as a prison that separated her from who she was truly meant to be.

Only after leaving Yellowroot does Lace realize that the mountains are an indelible part of her. After going away to college in Morgantown, Lace suddenly felt the absence of home: “[Y]eah, they had hills in Morgantown, but not backhome hills, and not the same feel backhome hills wrap you in. I’d never understood that before, had never even known the feel was there. Until I left out and knew it by its absence” (4). That was the first time that Lace realized that she identified with the landscape of her home state. From then on, every time she is away from Yellowroot, this feeling returns.