Kalamazoo Nature Center






Prairie Grass

Today our class took a field trip to the Kalamazoo Nature Center.  I have been there a few times in the past so I thought I knew what to expect but was still excited.  Our whole class walked the prairie together.  It was gorgeous.  I walked and gazed into the tall grasses, letting my hand (which had fallen to my side) graze through the grass.  Feeling the grass immediately put me in touch with nature.  I was walking along connected to the prairie, for a few brief moments I was a part of it.  Then our guide started talking again.  I would like to see what those grasses look like next year after 2 years of growth.



Logs in the river

   After that our class went in different directions.  I followed a section and every now and then paused to capture the beauty around me with my camera.  Trying to preserve it to look back upon.  We ended up taking the trail to the Kalamazoo River.  There was about 6 of us and we walked and chatted about random things.  Again I would stop to take a picture, looking around me the only sign of man was the wood that made up the trail.  The trees rose from the ground up to the blue sky.  Leaves scattered the ground causing me to look forward to the changing of their color and watching them drift down from the sky in the next month.  I stopped at a little overview of a stream that lead into the river.  It peacefully trickled by, so clear.  I caught up with the group at the overhang view at the river.  It looked like any other river I've had the opportunity to canoe/visit but that did not take away its beauty.  It was strangely calm and quiet.  There was a  tree hanging into the water and I crannied my neck to view it through branches.  Rivers are amazing that way; the trees fall into the river making them have twist and turns in them if you were to be going down the river.  It adds character and shows that it is not static but instead forever changing.  Eventually only 3 of us remained by the river.  I sneaked over the caution rope ignoring the sign to stay of the river.  I climbed down and stood as close to the water as I could.  I wish I could've walked right into it, but I had a class that day and I didn't want to go wet and muddy.  I took more pictures and wished I could stay out there the whole day.  Having a busy productive life is both good and bad.  The bad part is that I rarely get the chance anymore to do what I did today out at the nature center.  I relaxed and was myself with nature.

  We eventually left and walked back where we came from.  I decided to walk over the hill and railroad tracks instead of the tunnel.  Looking down the tracks with trees on both ends was sweet.  It looked like it could go on forever, with trees still visible in the distance.  Three of us, Juan, Alec, and I decided to walk back the longer way beside the stream.  And I am very glad we did. 

The stream

  Being in a forest surrounded by trees, running water and banks takes all the stress I was carrying with me and melted it away.  The stream flowed, without a care in the world, going over rocks and around fallen branches.  I put my purse down and hopped on a rock in the middle of the stream, I pivoted taking in the stream and forest from all angles.  I was standing in it, I was a piece that the stream had to flow around.  We slowly kept walking, pausing to take in what was before us and just relax.  We jumped across the stream to the opposite bank abandoning the trial.  I sat down on the ground and looked across the stream to view where I once had been standing.  As this was happening a few kids and adults walked by.  The kids were jabbering away about the trees and one boy kept exclaiming about the different leaves.  It made me think about how I viewed nature as a kid.  It was a place of adventure and new discoveries.  It still its that way today, but slightly more muted.  Now, grown up slightly, I also look at nature with a sense of reverence.  It is spiritual to me.  I am a part of nature and nature is a part of me.  I wish that I didn't have a 2 o'clock class today so that the nagging sense of time kept butting in reminding me that I could not stay.
  While zooming back to campus to make my class I felt a shift inside me that I cannot really explain.  The peace I felt just a few minutes previously was replace by a sense of urgency and stress.  My radio was blaring some ridiculous song and I felt disgusted with my self.  I could not keep the feelings I had in the forest with me when I left.  I had lost contact, losing a part of my self in the process.