My Final Project :)

My Place in Nature

Going into English 3110 I was already environmentally aware of the problems that humans and our planet have.  I come from a science background and I want to make a difference anyway I can.  However I never really thought about my actual place in nature.  This class opened up the thought process and I am going to miss it.  One of my favorite stories is from Alison Swans books, Fresh Water.  Gayle Boss’ Dunetop Dying  stayed with me long after I had read it.  The dune was so much a part of here that she could’ve easily left her life behind.  She was absolutely and deeply connected to nature.   I have no dune or hill I want to die on but I want to feel what she feels for that dune.  On page 36 she says as she is on top of the dune, “There’s nothing I need.”  Here place in nature was to just exist.  I imagined the feeling she was having and I crave it, but I am still slightly materialistic.

                Like Boss, who light a match instead me to find my own personal spot in nature, Springer has me longing for a taste of a serviceberry.  He describes a bear eating them as such, “Lost in ecstasy, he was oblivious to the dozen or so camera-clicking tourists nearby. (20)” Those must be some delicious berries.  Nature is amazing in what it provides for us.  I wish I had the capabilities to live of the land and us what Mother Nature has, like Kingsolver did.  If I had to choose one thing that this class taught me it would be; there are so many different ways to view this world and so many different ways to care for the world.  I hope to own a farm one day, an organic farm none the less, and live of it.  I want to make a home for myself in nature, to have the taste of service berries be the only thing I need to be happy.

                Reading a wide variety of literature in class is how I have opened up my mind about Environmentalism.  Instead of just wanting to fix what is wrong, I want to be a part of making the earth better. From saving a tree to hiking a trail there is many different ways for me to find my place in nature.  Being able to hear about my fellow student’s backgrounds opened up to me a world of variety.  I now roughly know where my place in nature is.

                I want to stay local and make a positive impact on my local citizens.  To solve a bigger problem, small steps must be taken.  I would much rather preserve a plot of land then have to change a nations recycling habitat.  My place in nature is letting her guide my life.  Getting rid of my stress and fear filled life to find joy in the little things, like the taste of a serviceberry.  

Its getting colder...

Today was the first day this fall that I put on all four of my winter essential clothes: hat, scarf, boots and gloves.  It was the first day November has actually felt like November to me.  Fall is over and winter is on its way.  Fall is my favorite season but winter is my second favorite.  And once most of the leaves are gone autumn isn’t as beautiful anymore.  Bundling up in warm clothes and funny hats to step out in the brisk morning light can be very refreshing.  However the cold weather without snow is frustrating.  Cold weather, below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, makes the earth feel like it is dying.  White frost covers the grass like the fingers of death.  I’d also rather brush snow off my car then scrape off ice.  As of right now I am excitedly anticipating winter.

            Winter holds many fun activities for me.  I have been skiing for the past four or so years and just managed to do jumps last year.  I am also really excited to ice skate.  I took ice skating lessons for over three years when I was younger and I have never stopped loving it.  Also snow creates really good sledding hills which are a fun activity to do with friends.  Snow also makes the cold ground look beautiful.  Waking up to a crystal clean white world is one of the most wonderful sights in the world.  Snow purifies the earth making a clean white slate for us to walk on. 

Rollerblading

Today I decided to go rollerblading for the first time in the past month.  I got them as a birthday gift at the beginning of the summer and went a lot before school started back up.  I needed a break from the busy and overwhelming schedule that is my life.  I had decided to follow advice a friend had given me recently.  I was told that all my problems arose from thinking.  Thinking stresses you out; thinking makes it impossible to live in the moment.  I desperatly need to follow that advice as I let day to day stresses get to me and wear myself down.

                I went rollerblading on one of portage’s many recreational trials.  I started at Milham Park and went south to Celery Flats.  As I sat in my car putting on my rollerblades I decided to forgo my usual music.  I have a playlist that is full of loud and pump up music that I usually listen to when I work out.   Today however I wasn’t rollerblading to get exercise, I was rollerblading to get away.

                Rollerblading allows you to go fast without working very hard.  I got into a rhythm with my body swaying as I changed the foot I pushed with as I glided down the trail.  The sun filtered through the trees.  The wind blew across rustling through the trees as well.  When I got to a straight stretch I allowed myself to close my eyes.  Sunlight flicked across my eye lids as I felt a sense of calm come over me.  It was just me and my rollerblades taking a stroll through nature.  The trail weaved next to the railroad tracks and Portage Creek.  And I just kept going reaching Celery Flats and seating on a bench.  I had just climbed a slight hill and was nervous about going back down it due to the fact that it had two curves as it flanked a pond.  As I sat waiting for the people behind me to walk up it I looked around me.  I had been here numerous times before.  I grew up riding my bike on these trials with my family.  And I smiled as my gaze came to rest on two kids playing on the small play set as their parents watched on.  I got up as I prepared to take on this hill.  It was exhilarating rolling down it, with my knees slightly bent as I bladed over cracks.  It’s a great feeling to just let go and let your body take its self down that hill.  Coming off it I kept up the speed as I pushed forward feeling relived that I didn’t crash and feeling in simple terms-happy. 

                The trail seemed to disappear underneath me faster going back then it did coming.  Or maybe I was paying more attention the nature around me instead of the hard pavement I glided on.  I saw three wild turkeys that I had heard scramble around the underbrush before even seeing them.   I saw a blue jay and numerous other birds.  I wasn’t thinking about anything; I was just observing.  The strain on my legs was slowly becoming apparent and I made it to my car with slightly cramped legs having just rollerbladed at least 3 miles.  As I drove home I opened up my windows and the wind blew in.  Its rushing noise put me back on the trail and once again I was calm.  I wasn’t calm with a decision I had made or the completion of homework.  I was calm and at peace with the current moment that I was living.  A moment I achieved by not thinking about anything at all.

Storybook Nature vs. The Real World



Western

I recently read a story about a man, James, saving a piece of land from being bulldozed to the ground.  It was about him stumbling through it and his time in there and among other things made him change his mind about the building project and cancelling it.  There is way more to this great story but I would like to focus on the difference from a plot of land that is all nature versus how society uses that nature.  I read this story on campus Thursday.  For a college campus Western’s buildings are pretty mild compared to bigger universities.  So walking to my class and driving home later that day I looked upon land that was filled with nature.  Western is a great campus in the fact that its buildings are never over 6 floors tall, and usually the 6 floors are for dorms.  Buildings that have classes in it only get to 4 floors if that.  Most of the buildings also have their first floor underground so the building isn’t very tall.  In the story I read they had planned to put an “unnecessarily tall” building up.  One that you would walk by and feel dwarfed by.  I do not feel overpowered by buildings on Western’s campus.  Driving home I mostly passed houses all of them with multiple trees in their yards.  If I passed any commercial buildings there were small and only one level.  Quite unlike the building planned in the story.  My house is in a neighborhood filled with trees so even then I wasn’t overpowered.  Portage is a very nice town because it isn’t a huge city and overtaken by 20 foot high buildings.   My calm was about to be interrupted.

                I am at Michigan State University currently.  I am here visiting one of my best friends from high school.  We have known each other for a good chunk of our lives.  This is my first visit as last year I did not have a car.  I bought my car about a month and a half ago.  Between both of our busy schedules this was the only weekend that worked out.  So after a year of wanting to visit I was finally able to do so!  I drove up with another friend who was visiting her boyfriend.  We left just before five o’clock so we hit rush hour traffic on the highway.  I was abruptly shoved into our speedy and human made world.  I was no longer driving down Oakland admiring the colorful trees surround me, I was passing cars and getting passed.  And getting to State, I was overcome by all the buildings.  They weren’t jammed packed but they were defiantly impressive.  The dorms were 6 stories high and educational buildings were just as high or taller.  Multiple parking ramps were scattered across the roads.  I am not saying State is an ugly campus.  In fact it is very nature filled with the grass surrounding the buildings and trees lining the sides of the roads.  It also has a ton of open spaces throughout the campus as well.  It was just a lot compared to what I am used to at Western.  At Western you park and then walk to class.  There are no roads going through the middle of campus.  At state there are so many roads all over the place.



State



 Driving along those roads trying to find a parking lot I could park in I thought about what it looked like before all this construction.  I thought about how Western must have looked before any buildings were there.  I thought about all the commercial buildings and grocery complexes and flat spaces of parking lots that litter our earth.  Do we really need all of that?  We are a growing population that tries to fit way too many people in certain areas, like Lansing.  It feels like we have no other option then to build higher and tear down trees so we can extend buildings or place a new one there completely.



I want to be like James.  I want to have the power to stop 20 acres of tree from being demolished.  I want to have that power, I don’t, but hopefully someday I will.  In real life most people don’t have the experience like James did.  They go about their everyday lives, hardly glancing at the buildings let alone the nature around them.  Real life isn’t like story book nature.  At least not very much.  There are people out there trying and making a difference.  We just need more of those people.  People should consider trees a thing of wonder not a part of architecture that looks good with a building. 

There is no specific person we can point our finger at and blame for how commercialism has taken over the nature world.  And there is no specific person we can point to, to fix it.  Those fingers should be pointed at ourselves.  We all need to go out there and do whatever we can.  From saving a 20 acre plot of land like James to just planting a tree of our own to recycling pop cans to refusing to do what society tells us to do.

Memory Trail

Earlier this week I carpooled to campus with my boyfriend.  After dropping me off near my class he went to find a parking spot.  He ended up having to park by the Valley’s, close to the intramural fields.  Since I got out of class before him I was going to get his car and pick him up over at Brown since I had time to kill.  Cutting through the Health Center’s parking lot, I started walking down the hill.  Western has a section of land where they have mostly kept untouched.  The trees had gorgeous leaves on them and the ground in between the trees was littered with fallen leaves.  I smiled and breathed in deeply.  This part of campus was still in autumn.  Even though it was a little cold all around me was evidence of my favorite season.  This was a walk I had done numerous times last year and it brought back memories.

Last year I didn’t start using this trail till the winter, not realizing it was there till there was snow on the ground.  I had trudge across the back of valley pond inserting my boot prints among the many that were there.  I witnessed the pond freezing over and thawing as spring crept in.  The spring time is where most of my memories are.  Walking down the hill I looked ahead.  The semi circle of pine trees with cement blocks brought back a specific memory.  A good friend and I walked down there one evening as it was starting to get dark.  To understand the significance some background on our relationship is needed.  We became good friends though our boyfriends, who had been best friends for years.  We always hung out with each other with a group of people and never really alone minus a few lunches together in the cafeteria.  This was our first time hanging out actually alone without people around.  That sounds lame but it was.  We had walked over the bridge and went to sit beneath the pine trees.  We discussed many things, or in other words had girl time.  We opened up to each other sharing personal thing that shall remain private.  We are great friends now and that night really defined our friendship.

Walking past those pine trees I came upon the bridge.  It was new!  I remembered walking over it last year always slightly afraid I’d step right threw a board.  I stood here 8 months ago feeding the geese and fish.  Me and my boyfriend had wrapped a few pieces of bread in napkins from the cafeteria and walked them down.  We stood leaning over the railing tosses ripped bread pieces into the lake.  There was a ton of fish and they swarmed together whenever something hit the surface.  There was a couple bright orange fish among the multitude of dark colored fish.  Then there were a couple new boards among the old boards.   Walking over it I was glad of the change and I passed by a girl looking into the water and I smiled.  It is the simple joys of seeing fish swarm together or remember a good time that can put a smile on my face.  Those things are the joy of living and are the moments I love having.

Down and Dirty

    Today my ENVS 2260 class went to Augusta Creek.  We had to put on waders and I lucked out getting a perfect fit for my feet.  The fabric was water proof and it went up very far strapping over the chest.  I partnered up with Chelsea and grabbing a bucket and net we climbed off the bridge we were on and waded in.  We walked down stream and decided to investigate the the stream to the side.  Chelsea took the net first trying to stir up insects and fish.  We got a ton of little small shrimp like creatures and collected them in our bucket.  I took the net and tried getting stuff from the side disturbing the side and failing to collect anything.  We walked and collected different bugs, some of them quite disgusting looking. We eventually hit a wider patch with a stronger current.  We stamped on the water bed while the other held the net.  We collected a fish!  I then took the net and dragged it across a weedy patch and collected another fish!  We then went back to the stomping and collecting and got two craw fish!
    Today's nature adventure was completely different from what I had been doing lately.  The past couple weeks I had been mostly looking up observing the trees.  Today I was looking down.  I was wading through the water collecting bugs, running my hands through the grime.  I was actually participating and observing nature at the ground level.  It was great.  It was a different experience and I am glad I was able to do it!