Final Nature Essay

Today was the Turkey Open--a tradition that has been a part of my family for 20 years. My dad, my grandfather and his siblings would go out to the golf course on Thanksgiving (rain, snow or shine) and play some golf to compete for the prize of the turkey hat and trophy. Sometimes they played the back nine holes, while other times they could only hit the golf ball off of the first tee due to the unforgiving, below-freezing temperatures. But either way, they showed up to spend a morning in nature, appreciating another year of health (but also for the game of golf).

Since then, my dad has passed along the tradition onto us (his three daughters). All having played golf growing up, we were equipped to participate (willing? well… thats a different story). It didn't matter how much we pleaded to stay at home because it was snowing or because of the freezing cold, my dad reminded us of the longstanding tradition and we quickly surrendered. Once we arrived and saw the course, quiet and asleep, the cold disappeared and was out of focus. It was a treat to be the only one on the golf course, it allowed us to appreciate the massive amount of large (mostly) untouched land— it seemed to be endless. You could be alone with your thoughts; moreover, you could be alone with nature. This past year, I was surprisingly excited to go to the golf course. It had been over a year since I had been back, and my relationship with nature has grown so much since that time; my appreciation of nature has developed through the help of this course.

When I arrived I saw that the land was just as I had left it a year earlier. I was grateful. I am grateful.

So much of our land is changing and it is obvious that it is not for the better. And while it is true that this selected spot is for mans' selfish play (i.e. the game of golf), it is comforting to know tall the trees, animals, grass, and bushes that live within it in will stay the same: alive and protected.

I can't the same for the nature trail around the block from my home….

As I have gotten older, observations such as this one are more obvious to me than not and remind me of the desperate cry the Earth makes, urging each of us to help save it. I am so frustrated with what our world has turned into, and I am unsure of whether it is to praise or to blame this class for sparking my interest. My love for nature did not truly present itself to me until I began to delve into this class. The excitement, passion and enthusiasm for wanting to know more about nature was instant,though; as soon as I saw the documentary, Before the Flood, I was both concerned, yet intrigued. I was blurred by many questions, all of which, of course, had no answers: How could we let this happen? How did I not see it coming? The destruction seemed to be happening all around me…was I just turning a blind eye to it? And the answer was yes—I was turning a blind eye, because it is true that nature (and its destruction) is happening right outside my front door. Of course my initial reaction was to panic; first, I emailed TCU’s SGA and informed them of my concern for our lack of recycling. That wasn’t all: I texted my mom and all my friends encouraging (actually, demanding) that they must not consume palm oil, I sat down with my chapter council for my sorority at the following meeting and encouraged an initiative to create more recycling circulation within our house, I changed my eating habits to be less red-meat focused and began to eat to more fish and chicken. All of my actions taken were extreme. I thought to myself… this won’t last, I am eager and anxious now, but this must be everyone’s initial response, which will then be followed by mere submissiveness and forgetfulness about how our world is going to turn into a massive ball of fire due to climate change and then yet again dismiss the problem, causing a never-ending cycle with no solution. But I surprised myself. A semester later, and I still have the same passion, if not more, for the care of our earth. This genuine concern has remained consistent, and my habits to maintain a more eco-friendly lifestyle have not wavered.

It has been come a part of my daily life and most of, if not all, of my choices are surrounded by an environmentally conscious mindset. Even small action steps such as walking to the library instead of driving are strides that I have made to contribute to saving the environment. I now immensely lowered my meat intake and the majority of my diet consists of things that only come from the earth avoiding any foods that are processed (I will especially not eat anything with palm oil in it!).

While I am grateful that I am taking the proper steps toward saving the environment, I am even more grateful of the how it has changed me as a person—I am more intentional and I am more present. These are two things that I always strove to embody, but as a student in college, I am always too focused on school or trying to get to the next appointment faster and more efficiently, forgetting that along the way, my actions could be negatively affecting something much bigger than doing well on that test or than being late for my appointment. I was no longer focusing on things that were truly important to me, one of which is leaving a positive impact (if not at least no impact) on the environment. School and arriving to my appointment on time are still important to me, but now I prioritize. I no longer make those things my ultimate focus.

Throughout the course of my, what some may say, short life, I have been greatly touched by nature (two of which happened throughout course of the semester). Without this class, I would not be able to articulate the impact from these events and for that, I am truly grateful.

Canoeing

When canoeing, I was yet again reminded of the cruelty that humankind has done to nature. In the class introduction, we were informed that we would be entering onto the serene and quiet oasis of the Trinity River—I expected big and beautiful things. What I saw, though, was not indicative of my initial thoughts, rather, I was disappointed. While there was much beauty within the 710-mile-long river (only part of which was seen on our 4 hour canoe trip), there was greater human footprint than should have been. There was an array of garbage including tires, chip bags, styrofoam…it was most eye opening to see a bird perched upon one of the tires sticking out of the murky water. Further while not only was the river itself muddled with trash, the surrounding view reminded me that the human footprint was not only present in the river… it was everywhere. As I glanced up from the river, trying to avoid rowing into the rocky perimeters, I noticed that the rocks were not really rocks, instead they were graveled pieces from old torn up cement streets and medians. The nature surrounding the rubbish seemed to be resilient, though, and the bushes and the trees had sprouted out from within the cracks. Even still, once I got a closer look, I found that within the bushes and trees, there were nests; nature had made itself known even in the mist of trash-like chaos. Though they were barren, it proved that nature may be more resilient than I had first assumed. This was similar to the reading of Bill McKibben’s “The End of Nature” who also noticed while on a walk that nature has a way of working around the unnatural objects that humans have left behind.

By the end of the canoeing trip, we arrived at what I thought was the most beautiful part of the trip. It was a skyline of downtown Fort Worth—a lit up glorious display of humankind’s architectural work. The buildings seemed untouched and precise—they were perfect. It seemed ironic that the most beautiful part of the trip was not nature at all but the possible epitome of why we have gotten to where we are today—we all strive for perfection. But nature isn’t perfect at all. It is messy, an inexact science if you will. There is no set equation or plan to create it…it just is. For this finding would have never crossed my mind without the canoeing trip, so while what I found wasn’t what I was looking for or expected, what I learned was so much more. Attaining perfection is not the most important thing in life, nor it is realistic. Sometimes you must just let yourself be.

The Tick

But with all the bad, it only makes me want to preserve the good. It is clear to me now, but unbeknownst to me at an earlier age, that my exposure to nature and the world around me has always been a love of mine. My parents encouraged an active lifestyle—both marathon runners—and wanted me to engage in nature. I can remember as a young child spending hours in our backyard, which included a small forest. We would run through what seemed to be miles of Massachusetts native pine trees; they engulfed us. Their trunks were tall and thick with bark that seemed to be tired, yet sturdy. I remember running my hands along the bark in a game of hide-and-go-seek and my hands ending up sticky and grimy with dirt….the smell of my hands was even more memorable than the dirt embedded within the crevices of my examining hand: pine-y. The towering huge, dark green pines released a smell of crispness: spruce and fir intertwined together to produce nature’s reminder to man kind of purity, sturdiness and age. The trees were tall yet even more massive in nature when grouped with its large pine family. My sister and I played for hours, never minding any bristles that poked us along the way. The weather was warm and I will never forget hiding behind a particularly large tree, one that my sister and I labeled as the “safe zone”— you couldn’t be tagged if you were behind this tree. This was where I found a lady bug. It was not red, rather it was slightly orange. Even still today, I can imagine it in my hands: its small legs walking across my hand very quickly. I remember turning my hand for the lady bug to move about at this fast pace, as if to compensate for the lack of surface area of my small hand. The black spots predominantly stood out against the redish-orangish shell. I quickly got bored with the little creature and flung it off. Its wings expanded, normally hidden when on its four legs.

Later that day, I remember my sister and I walking back to the house and my hands were sticky from the pine sap and smelt pungent from what I assumed to be the lady bug. I remember labeling that smell as “the lady bug smell”. That day, and that lady bug specifically, sit vividly in my mind. This, I’m sure, is a result of what happened later that night:

After insensately complaining of an itch on my head, my mom (who is an ER nurse and believes that most things can be fixed with Motrin and a big deep breath) checked my head only to find……. a tick. Of course, I was freaking out and urged her to take me to the hospital immediately. She, of course, refused, and took tweezers and pulled the “blood sucker” out of my head on the count of two, then placing it in a plastic bag. I was traumatized and from that day forward, I wouldn't play in the woods (until a week later when we did the same thing all over again).

The bison

I had never known that Fort Worth had a nature center, moreover, an area of land the area wished to preserve. Growing up in the Midwest, land was of one kind: flat and crowded with corn. Though I live in the city, when going on road trips and driving through the state of Illinois, this was the only land that presented itself, and for that reason, I never assumed that nature had a profound personality in the midwest. This mentality was carried through to my move to Texas. While I was aware of Texas’ great size, the only things I associated with it was TCU, big hair and barbecue (which I have now realized I am profoundly mistaken by, the majority of food in Texas is Mexican). My first two years spent in Fort Worth, I purely resided in local restaurant joints and coffee shops. It wasn't until this class that I learned of the Fort Worth Nature Center. There it became clear to me that nature is all around me and there is always nature that needs to be preserved at the rate that we treat it currently.

One of my favorite things that I saw there were the large, great bison. These animals seemed unworldly and unnatural because of their size—I had never seen such a beautiful animal. It was as if seeing nature in a whole new light. Nature to me (normally) only includes plants, trees and things of the like, but that day when I saw the bison just simply grazing and just simply being, I found nature its clearest form. While they were fenced in, they were untouched and undisturbed. It was truly an amazing sight to see.

Each of these experiences have allowed me to have different interpretations of nature, all so different but all so relative. One experience intertwined me with nature at its fullest capacity (the forest and the tick), one taught me that sometimes you have to search for nature a little more than you would may like (the canoe trip) and one taught me that nature is often in its purest form and found when you least expect it (the bison). I am happy to now know that nature has taken a new role in my life, and I owe that to this class, my teacher Dr. Williams, and my classmates.