Entry 8: First Snow

Crunching along in the snow, something feels so final. Maybe it's the time. It's the end of the semester. The year is almost over. The lush, enveloping green appears to be gone for good. White snow and brown vines and trunks are everywhere. It almost looks like a prison, but I don't like thinking about it in this way. It was so cold yesterday in the wind that I felt my legs begin to go numb. The biting cold reminded me of that chapter in "Forest Unseen" where he stripped himself down and sat in the snow and nearly suffered frostbite and hypothermia. I'm all about experimentation, however that's just a little too extreme for me still at this juncture. I go about as far as taking my glove off and picking up a small handful of snow and watch it melt in my palm.

A week or so ago, I had already thought that things were so vast and almost suppressed. The grass that stood in tall thicks now was nowhere to be found. Snow now covered everything. The only thing not snow were thorn bushes and empty tree trunks. The trees were empty, but not in a sad way. They seemed okay with their plight, they continued to stand and exist just as they always had. The only things that seemed to be taking this new weather so personally was the aforementioned grass and greenery that used to lurk about. I thought maybe I would see a deer or a rabbit, or even a grouse. I heard coyotes the other night, but didn't hope to run into any of them. No one showed up though, and it was just me with myself.


I looked down, where papa’s stone should be and couldn’t see it see-well the now fragments of it. I dug through the snow anyways until I hit the remnants. I can't let myself forget . . .

Even though it was almost too cold even for me, and I was alone which was something I used to have a bigger problem with, I was okay. I felt . . . sturdy. I felt like I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing. I envisioned the grass and other plants that used to be around; the goldenrod, the queen ann's lace, and suddenly I thought of a kind of exciting and mostly childlike analogy. I was excited for spring but not so much that I would wish the winter away-I know there are things in store for me to discover in the snow. I thought though, that the spring is like nature's Christmas. It's when everything is unwrapped and revealed that we've been anticipating for what's felt like ages. Every year, nature knows just what to give and is exuberantly wonderful and different each time. We'll just have to wait and see.

This place, and this act of coming here has become so important to me. I am grateful for this place, and for this assignment. I was surprised about the ways in which this place has changed me. In the beginning I thought maybe I would be so lucky as to learn new things about nature, and enjoy the plants and things I saw, but I learned so much more than that in these few months. The changes I observed seemed to be so much more dramatic than I ever remembered. Yes, this is mostly because I had never paid such close attention before, but there was something else about it. Nature had seemed to be teaching me things about myself. I learned in this place that things come and go-and how to accept and be okay with that. I also realized here too though that somethings are never really gone. I learned how to create my own new connections with my surroundings and things I thought were lost. I learned that it's okay to not have all the answers all the time, I don't have to know everything all the time.

And I think one of the most important things, to me, that I learned in this assignment is not to underestimate nature, and that it always has something completely new for me to see, explore, and learn about.

I love this ground.

Entry 7: This New Tundra

 Today I went out to the clearing and there was just a dusting of snow all over the ground, on the trees, on the car; everywhere. The kind of snow that is still transparent in that it looks like the icing on top of a crackled oatmeal cookie (if oatmeal cookies were kinda green). It seems as though the temperature outside had been “70 degree t-shirt weather” only a week ago and now already I was bundled up in thick socks and boots, my most obnoxiously big winter coat, and a scarf that makes my head look like I'm trying to burrow down into it. It kind of made me think what the rest of winter is going to be like, and wonder if it’s always this cold. I don’t know why the cold and the first really noticeable snow (I don’t count that freak accident snow that happened two or three weeks ago because it melted the very next day and was fine) seemed to be the coldest start to winter I had ever experienced. Maybe this was the first year I had actually noticed the changes and the first year I had taken time to “spend time with” each stage in the progression of the seasons. There wasn't even enough snow on the ground to make really tracks as my footprints just kind of melted or messed up the snow nor was there enough snow to crunch under my feet. In years past when the first big snow comes I snap into little kid mode, and get really into it. The air was very still, and very quiet.

            The walls on either side of the path today were practically nonexistent. In the summer I can’t see anything once I’m in there except what’s in the paths/clearings (probably because I’m so short). But now that the snow’s here and the walls have been broken down, I could see forever into my little biosphere. Deep down into the path, which usually feels like such a secretive place, I could still see my house. I could almost see the clearing from the opposite side. It was a little less fun. Usually people are looking to tear down the walls and get to “the other side” weather literally or metaphorically. But I was content on “my side of the fence” when I had my high goldenrod walls and my lush green floor. The grass was greener on my side and I had been so suddenly and unwillingly shoved to the other side. Maybe, probably, eventually, I’ll come to love this new tundra.

Entry 6: Weather

I had been looking for answers both for school and for life. I was worn out. I haven't had much time for anything lately, let alone think about answers for things. But I went to the field this time in my usual trench coat on my back, cigarette in hand, and dog at my side. Usually, I love visiting my spot, and I love spending time there, but this time I was in a mood. I stomped through the path to the small clearing and I stood there in the sun.
Apparently this day, the weather wasn't having any of my sass. The wind was so fierce I had trouble lighting my cigarette, and the flaps on the collar of my coat kept blowing up and slapping me in the face. So nature had won this time, forcing me to be still for a few seconds and wait. Now, maybe I’m crazy but sometimes when I get like I was on this day in particular the only person I can bear to talk to really is my dog. I looked at KD and I asked her, “What are we gonna do?” There were so many things running through my mind. I needed to get things together, there were things I was trying to cope with, things I didn’t know how to respond to. In the meantime while I was talking this all out with the wise little beagle, the wind was still going at it hard, and my fingertips had begun to hurt from the cold. After enough time and talking it all out, I think I managed to talk myself into a circle. At one point in my little “chat” I even asked the wind “IS THAT REALLY NECESSARY?!” I voiced aloud. And it continued to blow with the same intensity. I pressed on though just staying in my clearing, and continued trying to figure things out with myself. Something hit me though. Maybe I didn’t need all the answers right now. Maybe not having answers for things at this exact time was the point and that “figuring it out” is the stuff of life. There’s no sense of jumping ahead. What fun is going straight to jail without even passing GO or collecting $200 dollars? Kind of feels like a cop out, but I was satisfied with that answer. For someone like me who always needs the answers and likes to be the boss, having a time of uncertainty is maddening, and therefore this was a new level of clarity for me. So I turned to walk back to my house, and I could have sworn the wind had died down just a little bit.
Funny thing weather. I’m the kind of person who will sometimes take the weather as an omen or a harbinger of some sort. Now bear with me because here is probably where I really begin to sound like a crazy person. In lieu of recent events, I’ve been taking the wind “seriously” in that: I think my great-grandfather who’s been deceased for sixteen years now comes and goes with the wind sometimes. I was really close with him, so maybe this is me just trying to find a way to still be close to him sometimes. So when the wind does things like that, at seemingly eerie times, I always think it has to do with Frank (my GG).

Entry 5: Carpe Noctem

So. I decided to do things a little differently for this particular visit to my mandala. I braved my fears, grabbed a flashlight and headed to the field.

            Yes at first I had trouble getting over the feeling that I was in a horror movie. Outside the view of my little flashlight it was so dark. When I had shone my light up into the tall weeds on either side of the path, they were not officially dead and all brown from the ground to the tip. Beyond them though, instead of the cheery bright blue backdrop and vast field backdrop behind them, there was instead darkness and uncertainty. The first time I looked out at it, childishly, I half expected Leatherface or something to appear from the blackness.

            Admittedly, in 23 years of living here I had never ventured out into the fields at night by myself. I had been down my driveway in the dark a few times back in High School when I would sneak out of the house to go out, but never into that mysterious field.

            So anyways, I stood in the path for a few minutes shining my small stream of light all around trying to get acquainted and also trying to tell myself to stop being a goofus and that nothing here was going to hurt me. The field is like a completely new and different place at night. It was difficult to grasp a sense of direction or tell where I was going. I was fumbling around in the dark-even though it’s pretty much a straight shot to my spot. I thought I was on the wrong path or that I had gone too far a few times, so I tried to look for familiar land marks: certain trees, maple, that I always pass on my way to my spot that once I found them, I continued on.

            The next thing I noticed was the grass. It was frigid outside, maybe just barely enough for some frost-just enough to make the ground sparkle. I saw it as a final precursor to winter. (That’s the one thing I love about the first snow. In the evening, the ground sparkles and gleams in the moonlight and as a poet-I eat it up and swoon over it) So I got my reminder of what’s just around the bend.

            Once I was finally to the right spot, I looked around and tried to find what else would be different, that initial fear of the dark still would try and pop back up in my thoughts, but I was determined to stay for a while. When I exhaled, my smoky looking breath got caught in my flashlight and whirled around in the beam of light, over the glittery grass, and the dead weed walls surrounding me. I was really caught up in all of the new textures colliding and forming some kind of collage before me.  Finally, I was brave enough to turn my light off and immerse myself in complete darkness. I held my breath and clicked the light off. But instead of being enveloped and overtaken by complete darkness, there was something at my back. I turned around to find a crescent moon above me. My own little beacon. Even though things in nature like the phases of the moon run on a constant cycle, I still felt like nature knew that there was still a scared child underneath all of these layers of age and that I wasn’t ready for complete darkness. I love the moon, there’s something so mystical about it as tacky as that might sound but there’s just something about it.

            Standing there, staring up at the moon, I noticed how everything was even more still and silent than in the day, like even the plants and wind had gone to bed as well. It was like existing in nothing, (almost) no light, nothing to see, nothing to hear, no movements there in the darkness. It was an entirely new world.

Entry 4: Calling lt Like I See It

So I finally went to my spot by myself. Why myself and other humans always think we need constant companionship even if it's with a dog baffles me. But nevertheless, I went alone. It had been raining all night and the day was still pretty overcast always with the threat of rain. I think fall days like these are kind of nice, it's spooky like Halloween sort of. Walking though "the gates" as I call them, or the start of the trail to my spot, I felt like I was in a movie or something. Walking through this clearing, in my little trench-coat all by myself. There was such a stillness you could feel the stale air just hanging there waiting to cling to your bones. It was frigid.

I wondered what I had to learn today since I had no one here in front of me to "teach" me something new. I would have to do the work myself today. I didn't want to run and be carefree, I didn't feel like getting muddy and ruining my boots. So I started poking around and looking at things, not just looking but observing.

The grass below me feet instead of being dry and sharp, and scratchy was wet and covered in gigantic maple leaves that had started to curl. There was one particular blade of grass that stuck out (okay I know that sounds silly and probably over the top) but there was one that was bigger than all the others and on it were three drops of dew, or rather, rain. It's something you always see in pictures as screen savers for computers or cell phones, but to see it in real life is almost kind of funny because I'm always used to seeing it on a screen. I almost feel silly for talking about it. It's something so simple and obvious, but I guess I just haven't taken so much time to notice lately.

In writing this particular entry, I wish I could be more scientific in my writing like Haskell, but that's just not who I am. Some days you just want to write about the world as you see it.

Entry 3: Choose Your Own Adventure

Today, I had a different guest accompany me to my spot, a different kind of little animal. Today, my 4 year old cousin Genevieve or “Just Genny” as she calls herself wanted to come along with me for my walk and who was I to say no? On our way I thought about what “adventure” she would bring on this particular trip, she’s a funny little girl who is extremely smart and well-spoken for her age. Walking hand in hand before we reached my spot, she asked “So where are we going?” I replied, “You agreed to go on a trip and you didn’t even know where the destination is? You’re a little goofy.” To which she replied as she always does whenever you call her anything except “Genny” or “Princess” “I’m just Genny and I wanted to go with you!” Such exasperation from a four year old. Then she broke free from my hand and started running calling back to me “You can run around here if you want!” One of my favorite things about children is how carefree they are, and how much they enjoy the simple things. So I chased after her through the path until we reached the spot.

I told her this is where we wanted to be and we sat down. When she asked me why I came here, I paused for a minute. The funny thing about children is how naive they can be. I could tell her anything I could tell her the truth and say I visit this place for a school assignment. I could tell her we’re hunting “wabbits”. I could say we’re going on a safari adventure. Most kids I’ve known might believe that, but Genny like I said is pretty smart for her age. So I told her the truth. But then I asked her “Well, why don’t we pretend we’re in the jungle?” And she asked “Can we hunt for lions?!” I replied “Sure.”

She knew we weren’t really in the jungle, but she was willing to pretend. We could choose whatever we wanted there. That's one of of the things about nature I've never really thought about. You can do whatever you want out here (within reason). Sure you can do whatever you want with your life, but we know that. I think sometimes we put nature on a pedestal and think that there are certain restrictions like we're in a museum with glass walls. It's the open. We can "run around here if we want" and yell and scream. Or we can sit and reflect in the quiet. There are only a few restrictions here.

Entry #2 Overlooking the Obvious

I went back to the meadow two days ago, and this time I brought my dog along. Her name's KD, she's a beagle, she's hilarious. Usually, when I bring my dog along for walks, I'll get mad at her because she's so pokey, and more often than not has her own idea about where she wants to go and will run off somewhere on her own and we'll "lose her" until she decides to come back home. That afternoon though, I watched her as we walked along, and of course she was being her usual pokey self, but as I watched her it seemed like she was looking for something, or looking intently, and closely at everything around her. I was kind of jealous. She was just immersing herself in the world around her, giving everything a closer look and really taking her time. Maybe she was looking for something. Maybe her dog's keen sense of smell tipped her off that something was nearby. Whatever the reason though, I was inspired. I wanted to slow down, and immerse myself in my surroundings taking the time to look at everything surrounding me. At first when I finally got to my exact spot, I sat down and though “What the hell am I going to focus on? There’s grass, and weeds, and plants, sun and sky.” But then immediately I was like “Well isn’t that enough?” So I went over towards the edge of the clearing where the jagger bushes (I’m from Pittsburgh sorry), Goldenrod, and other things I’m still working on identifying, form weedy walls to my little spot and stared within those walls. I noticed how the tops of the plants were so bursting with color and seemed to be full of life, but towards the bottom they seemed dead. When I peered through all of the dead stems though, I saw movement-a rabbit! Which apparently maybe obviously my dog saw too and she was off into the mini forest.

            So then I was alone and I sat back in the grass, and decided to give that a closer look. As I probably mentioned in my last post, the grass here is thick and rough, and almost hard. But I didn’t want to pull at it, or rip any of it out. (Honestly, I’m usually pretty careless about these things and not very mindful of things like that) so I carefully tried to part it and got down to the dirt.

            At first I was kind of taken aback when I got to the dirt, because it was really hard and dusty so going back to thinking about the greenhouse I though “Seriously, how did papa grow anything good here let alone bunches of beautiful plants?” But I dug a little bit with my finger and got past the dry dirt and into the rich soil and was pleased.

            Looking back, this should have been something obvious to me that obviously the dirt on top is going to be dry and “dusty” and that of course if weeds, trees, and other plants can thrive here-other things should be able to as well.

             I think sometimes we forget the basics of things, or overlook the obvious and simple things because we're so used to things being so complicated anymore. It's nice though to have those little reminders.

Some meadow pictures...I like to pretend I'm a photographer.

So I went back to my spot two days ago and here are some pics I took!

Time Travel

September

My meadow.
Where I live is kind of nice, because it's close enough to "civilization" but we're also pretty secluded by the trees that entirely surround our property (there is only my house, and my grandmother's house here). Consequently, most of the land is forest, but at the end of my yard, there is a meadow it's pretty vast and starts to ease up a hill. Sometimes my dad cuts paths with the tractor throughout the meadow. There's one particular spot though in which he cuts a small clearing, no one ever really goes there, unless passing through for a walk. It's nice though. This is the place that I have chosen. (This is going to be a real treat when the snow comes hah...)

Today is perfect. It's not too warm outside, and it's breezy. There's only one smallish tree in the clearing, but it provides just enough shade. The grass here is stiff, and itchy. Reminder next time to bring a blanket or something. At first I sat and wondered what to even think about, my brain is going a thousand miles an hour today, so maybe I'll just write a little about the history today.

The reason for the meadow (I mean, why it's not just yard or forest), is that my great-grandfather used to have a greenhouse here, about 50 years ago if I had to guess. He and my great-grandmother moved here when my grandma was a little kid to go into business with I think it was the Hahn family, to start a greenhouse. So there used to be a small cluster of buildings, and I think one or two more houses. In some spots when you walk around, you can find part of a wall, a scrap of some asphalt, or I've even found a few, small terra-cotta pots.

I was fortunate enough to know my great-grandfather when I was young, though he never told me about the greenhouses himself, and if he did I was too young to remember. He passed away when I was 7. Even though it wasn't a lot of time to know someone, I still wish he was around, and sometimes I get sad when I think about him. But, coming to this meadow I'm reminded of him and try to put myself back in time to when there was a greenhouse where I now sit, and imagine him watering plants, or planting them and imagine I'm there too.