Nature Journalism - Reflections
“Awareness is becoming acquainted with the environment, no matter where one happens to be.”
Today was that special type of Pacific Northwest grey that makes me wonder how, during my childhood, I never noticed just how many grey days I woke up to. The grey descended upon my Walden spot suddenly, as if the sky had changed moods the moment I decided to sit down on the porch. Then, emerging behind the clouds like an excited child during a spirited game of hide-and-seek, the sun made its appearance. As I began to lift my face up to it, gratefully accepting its generous offer of rays, it began to slip away. I could have sworn it spotted little old me all the way down here on Earth and decided it was time to tuck itself back behind the clouds after only twenty minutes. I, the sore loser, was left wondering when I would see it again: would it be tomorrow morning or in a month accompanied by the sweet promise of Spring? And then came the rain, slow and sleepy.
The last of nearly three inches of the glistening snow I had fallen in love with over the weekend disappeared as quickly as it came late Friday night. I resisted the immediate urge to retreat back into the warmth of my house and watch from a window as my world underwent a dramatic transformation for the third time that week. One by one, the three crows that had been keeping me company on the bare branches of the Japanese Maple took their leave; fluttering away in opposite directions. That’s when I noticed that I hadn’t seen one of my Walden spot regulars in over a week: the pot-bellied squirrel that made mad dashes back and forth across the front driveway. By allowing myself to be fully aware of my changing surroundings: I noticed the absence of a detail that I had become accustomed to seeing.
I was once more reminded of the words of Sigurd F. Olson in his book Reflections from the North Country. He concludes his chapter “Awareness” with a profound reflection of time: how one should not only be aware of the passage of time in an environment but also the absence of well-spent time in one’s life. On page 72, Olson wrote that, “The longer that he contemplated the world of living things and looked at the earth itself, the more he was convinced there can never be an end to the wonder and awareness, and that one of the real tragedies in life is to waste time when there is so much more to see and learn.” Until this morning, I was thoroughly convinced that in this line, Olson was expressing feelings of regret for not living life as he believed one should.
I now believe that the author is encouraging readers to take ownership of their time and use it as a tool to enhance their awareness of the world around them. In my case, that means paying attention to the way I spend my time in my Walden. There’s so much more I can do to make the most of my time spent in nature! Noticing the absence of that pot-bellied squirrel is just the beginning of opening myself up to seeing and learning more about my little world.