There’s a rise on the interstate when traveling west toward my house. When I crest that rise on a clear day, I see the same mountains that I see from my office window. Several years ago, I experienced the view from that rise on that stretch of highway as if for the first time, though in truth it was, perhaps, the third or fourth. In seeing the familiar view anew, I realized I’d returned home.

Landscape shapes us, and it shapes our lives, often in ways we don’t realize. I didn’t grow up with m...