Nature Theme Analysis

Sal is, according to her Gramps, “a country girl at heart.” So, over the course of Sal’s cross-country road trip with her grandparents, as she tells them a story about her friend Phoebe, Sal is always attuned to the natural world around her. She describes the farm where she grew up; the tiny yards in Euclid, Ohio, where she and Dad live for a year after Momma leaves; and the landmarks, such as the Black Hills and Old Faithful, that she sees along her trip with Gram and Gramps. Nature is, for Sal, something that makes her feel safe and comfortable—and most importantly, it connects her to Momma, whom readers eventually learn is deceased. Through Sal’s reverence for the natural world, and the way that nature helps Sal connect with Momma and with her Native American heritage, the novel positions nature as a healing force—one that’s capable of connecting people across time and space.

As a “country girl,” Sal sees the natural world as a powerful (even magical) force that connects her to her family. In flashbacks, Sal explains that she was extremely happy when she, Momma, and Dad lived on the farm together. Living on the farm, Sal could spend her days at the swimming hole, climbing trees, and caring for the farm animals—activities that made her feel alive and fulfilled. Similarly, Sal shows how both Momma and Dad loved and felt connected to the natural world. Dad loved working on the farm and refused to wear gloves in the course of his work because he needed to touch things that were “real,” like the dirt and the animals. And Momma regularly ate blackberries fresh from the vine and kissed trees—something that shows how much she loved the natural world. Sal implies that her and her parents’ shared love of their land is what kept the family content, and this deep connection with and reverence for nature imbued the farm with an almost magical quality in Sal’s mind. This is why, when Momma leaves the farm and dies in a bus accident, Sal doesn’t want to leave the farm. She believes so fully in Momma’s emotional and spiritual connection to the farm and the natural world that she thinks Momma will come back to it. And while it’s impossible for Momma to come back, Dad nevertheless echoes the idea that Momma is spiritually connected to their land: in justifying the move to Euclid, Dad explains that Momma is “haunting” the farm. Sal’s connection to and love of the natural world is why moving to Euclid, a suburb without much natural beauty, is traumatic for Sal. Not only is it painful to be away from the specific landscape and animals she loves, but it’s also painful to feel distant from the natural world in general, because this makes her feel distant from Momma.

Nature also connects Sal to her Native American heritage. Both Sal and Momma’s names are nods to the natural world and to their heritage. Momma’s full first name is Chanhassen, a Native American name that means “tree sweet juice,” or maple sugar. Sal’s full name is Salamanca Tree Hiddle; Salamanca is the tribe her parents (incorrectly) believed an ancestor was a part of, and Tree as a nod to Momma’s name and Momma’s love of trees. In this sense, Sal’s connection to nature and her heritage is evident in her name and therefore in her identity. Sal gets to engage with her Native American heritage over the course of her road trip with her grandparents, another aspect of her identity that’s tied to the natural world. Every place Gram and Gramps stop at along the way is a site of spiritual significance for Native Americans: for instance, the Black Hills are sacred to the Sioux tribe. At several points, Sal also recalls Momma’s favorite “Indian stories” that explain why the world is the way it is—and those stories overwhelmingly try to explain human phenomena, like death, using the natural world. Nature, this suggests, can help people understand where they come from, how the world works, and why things are the way they are.

As Sal embarks on the road trip, reconnects with nature, and connects with her Native American heritage in the process, she begins to heal from the trauma of losing Momma. Gram and Gramps very purposefully stop at all the same places Momma did when she traveled west just over a year ago. This serves two purposes: first, Sal thinks about Momma and what Momma saw or thought at each stop. By engaging in these thought exercises, Sal develops empathy for Momma and begins to heal from her grief and trauma. And second, as Sal also thinks about Momma’s “Indian stories,” particularly the ones that deal with death, she’s finally able to come to the conclusion that death is both “normal and terrible.” In this way, nature helps Sal to find closure after Momma’s death. This becomes clear when Sal acknowledges that Dad was right about not needing to bring Momma’s body back to Bybanks to bury her. It’s fine that Momma’s body rests in Lewiston, since Momma’s spirit is everywhere. And this is also why Dad and Sal are able to move back to the farm in Bybanks after Sal’s road trip: because Sal and Dad now realize that they can connect to Momma anywhere in the natural world, the farm is no longer as significant and no longer has the painful associations it once did. Through Sal and Dad’s transformations, Walk Two Moons shows that nature, and the stories people tell about it, can be uniquely healing.