Wednesday, December 9, 2009
8:30am
It rained last night. A lot. I was expecting to wake up to an icy layer that coated everything. But it seems the temperature has risen, just slightly. It’s still cold. I bundled up in my husband’s jacket, knowing that if my core is at least warm, my fingers and nose will survive. It is just after morning rush hour. The steady stream of cars down Washington Blvd and Penn Ave. are slowly starting to die down. I look up to see the clouds moving quickly. They part where their gases are thin, revealing the piercing morning sun in intermittent streams.
Although it is a weekday morning, and I hear life all around me, man-made life that is: cars, buses, construction and footsteps, there is a pleasant but strong movement coming from my natural surroundings. My honey locust is completely bare now, swaying with a momentum that starts at the tip of its branches and disappears somewhere closer to its trunk. The black spruce is still full of needles, but its tiny cones have dwindled down to short skinny pods that hang along the upper ledge of branches. They look cold, as though they are hiding inside the tree’s full bushy arms, like me in my big jacket.
I try to envision what this place looked like when I first started writing this blog. Green was everywhere, highlighted by the summer light. I couldn’t see the sky and backdrop. I couldn’t see the rooftops beyond the telephone wires. I couldn’t see people inside their windows getting ready to start the day. It makes me think of how cleansing winter can feel, as though all the “fluffy” stuff (the bushes, leaves, flowers and tall grass) has been swept clean by cold winds and frost. It’s a time when we go indoors to spend our time. We live in close corridors with our loved ones, we smell the inside air, we cuddle up next to our pets and our lights, hoping to seek a similar warmth we feel outside in summer and spring.
I realize I love winter for that very reason. It is a forcing “in” of people and things. And, in a good way. My husband and I have been spending less and less time together, because he has been extremely busy between his job and outside consulting work. I long for the cold nights when he does come home, because there is no where for us to go but right next to each other. Although we love to venture out from time to time when the snow is so thick all you see it white, for now I am happy sitting on the couch by the shine of Christmas lights. It makes me think that it is not just holidays that bring out the “closeness” in people, or the feelings of gratefulness and thanks. It is nature itself: a winter season with more intent than imagined. With the intent to encourage our busy lives and frantic schedules to slow down, curl up and get warm, right next to the people we love most.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Final Reflection to Nature Writing Course
Coming into this course, I was eager to delve into the world of nature writing. For me, it was even more appealing because I have spent the past year of my time here at Chatham focusing my own writing on the natural world and environment. As a result of this course not only am I more interested in nature writing, but I also have discovered a much deeper and more meaningful level of writing. I now see nature writing as a place to reveal the most innate behaviors of the human condition, to revel in intimate interactions with the natural world, and to spread a degree of understanding and appreciation of the world around us so that we may tread more lightly upon it.
Although it was complicated and we often found ourselves back where we started, I will never forget our first class discussion concerning “What is Nature?” To me, that was one of our most engaging, interactive and passionate discussions. I enjoyed listening to all the different view points and found myself changing my own perspectives throughout the discussion. The question is a vague and difficult one, but I think it put us on the right track: it founded a place for our minds to build from when we read, analyzed and wrote our own nature pieces.
Class discussion was one of my favorite elements of this course, however I thoroughly enjoyed our field trips, guest speakers, and blog entries. As someone who admires activism, and plans on getting out in the field and doing volunteer work (which I never find the time to do) I was grateful that this class got me out there. The farm was fun, educational and it felt good to be out in the cold with my classmates. It reminded me of how lucky I am to be able to attend a school like Chatham and be involved in everything it offers. And although it was a “rough” morning for many, as well as a rainy one, I was happy and proud to be at the Nine Mile Run Watershed cleaning up crap and planting more trees. I think as citizens we should all be doing that regularly(there should be some sort of tax incentive for work like that-not that I care about the money, but I think it would get more people out there.) Another highlight for me was the guest speakers. Although very different people and writers, Nancy Gift and Jimmy Santiago Baca opened my eyes up to yet another level. Nancy taught me that it’s okay to just write down stories, to go back and make them environmentally educational, and to love weeds! Jimmy shook my mind and encouraged me to write with a level of emotion that I often stifle. His words and wisdom reminded me of the power of language, and the advantage we, as writers, have by using it.
I have to say that I now hold a special place in my (nature) heart for Mary Oliver, Janisse Ray, Edward Abbey, and Gretel Ehrlich. Although not a poet, Oliver’s writing reminded me of the power of simplicity and color. Ray showed me the skill of weaving the environmental with the personal, and Abbey and Ehrlich made me want to travel to the West in order to see the land as beautifully as they describe it, believing that I, too, could discover such serenity.
I find myself often getting caught up in description when it comes to my nature writing. I like how this course has taught me to utilize scene, dialogue and meaningful reflection to speak to somewhere much further beyond my own mind. I wish I could have taken this class earlier in my time here at Chatham. I feel it has taught me to take my writing to the next level when it comes to merging literature with nature. The blogging has heightened my awareness of my intimate surroundings. Although I sometimes had a hard time seeing my spot with “fresh” eyes, I like how it forced me to observe. As a result, I discovered what was hiding underneath the surface. I now have a deeper relationship with the things I describe, and I hope to incorporate that “light” into all my writing.
Although it was complicated and we often found ourselves back where we started, I will never forget our first class discussion concerning “What is Nature?” To me, that was one of our most engaging, interactive and passionate discussions. I enjoyed listening to all the different view points and found myself changing my own perspectives throughout the discussion. The question is a vague and difficult one, but I think it put us on the right track: it founded a place for our minds to build from when we read, analyzed and wrote our own nature pieces.
Class discussion was one of my favorite elements of this course, however I thoroughly enjoyed our field trips, guest speakers, and blog entries. As someone who admires activism, and plans on getting out in the field and doing volunteer work (which I never find the time to do) I was grateful that this class got me out there. The farm was fun, educational and it felt good to be out in the cold with my classmates. It reminded me of how lucky I am to be able to attend a school like Chatham and be involved in everything it offers. And although it was a “rough” morning for many, as well as a rainy one, I was happy and proud to be at the Nine Mile Run Watershed cleaning up crap and planting more trees. I think as citizens we should all be doing that regularly(there should be some sort of tax incentive for work like that-not that I care about the money, but I think it would get more people out there.) Another highlight for me was the guest speakers. Although very different people and writers, Nancy Gift and Jimmy Santiago Baca opened my eyes up to yet another level. Nancy taught me that it’s okay to just write down stories, to go back and make them environmentally educational, and to love weeds! Jimmy shook my mind and encouraged me to write with a level of emotion that I often stifle. His words and wisdom reminded me of the power of language, and the advantage we, as writers, have by using it.
I have to say that I now hold a special place in my (nature) heart for Mary Oliver, Janisse Ray, Edward Abbey, and Gretel Ehrlich. Although not a poet, Oliver’s writing reminded me of the power of simplicity and color. Ray showed me the skill of weaving the environmental with the personal, and Abbey and Ehrlich made me want to travel to the West in order to see the land as beautifully as they describe it, believing that I, too, could discover such serenity.
I find myself often getting caught up in description when it comes to my nature writing. I like how this course has taught me to utilize scene, dialogue and meaningful reflection to speak to somewhere much further beyond my own mind. I wish I could have taken this class earlier in my time here at Chatham. I feel it has taught me to take my writing to the next level when it comes to merging literature with nature. The blogging has heightened my awareness of my intimate surroundings. Although I sometimes had a hard time seeing my spot with “fresh” eyes, I like how it forced me to observe. As a result, I discovered what was hiding underneath the surface. I now have a deeper relationship with the things I describe, and I hope to incorporate that “light” into all my writing.
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