Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray

I feel that I can relate to Ray, who found wonder and adventure in a place considered filthy or dangerous. I spent and still spend a lot of my time in hot pursuit of dark, dangerous places that remind me of the places in my recurring dreams. My places are abandoned, off-limits, dangerous, full of junk, filthy, and dark. In real life, you can find me in caves, mine shafts, abandoned tunnels, ventilation shafts, river-sides, abandoned buildings, factories, swamps, cemeteries, basements, and deep closets. I am always pursuing the cramped, the dark. It can get me in trouble and hurt me. It can make people lose trust in me or worry for me. But I am fine--and as wrong as I know it sounds for me to say this--nothing terrible ever happens to me.

Like Ray, I would have been at home, easily, in a junkyard. In fact, I often drive past them and fantasize about being in the bowels of them, always thinking to myself, this would be a great place to lay down and die.

On page 25, Ray mentions "surprise" concerning the wide variety of groceries her father would bring home. I love how Ray remembers and portrays her childhood through processes, for that is something I always encourage myself and others to do--to remember how to be a child. Surprise is such a beautiful thing and actually, it has a lot to do with my thesis on curiosity and Rachel Carson's child-like wonder.

One technique that Ray uses to instill a child-like persona in her writing is the use of lists. She uses some amazing lists in her writing. Here are a couple examples:

Axles, transmissions, a wheelbarrow with a flat tire, split plastic buckets, ahlf a toilet, a postmodern clay statue of a twisted man with a cigarette in his ear, wire cages, broken wood stoves, an upside-down washing machine.

...bathtubs, motors, an airplane wing, the bucket to a crane, tractor tires, sparrow nests, froze-up treadle sewing machines, kids' swimming pools going to crumbs, rusted harrows and plows. More motors. Transmissions. A small mountain range of bald tires and rims. Hubcaps. A gaggle of bent, broken, mutilated, unusable bicycle frames.

The interesting thing about her making tese lists as a writing, professional adult is that it reflects and proves that she grew up among a lot of junk.

Another way that she captures child-like wonder is that there are stories. There are little myt stories concerning how she and her siblings were "found" instead of born. In the chapter "Built by Fire," she tells a tale, personifying pine and lightning.

While reading this book, I didn't really feel like I was reading a "nature" book. The natural aspects of this book, I think, were tied in seamlessly. Compared to Gift's book, I think Ray did a better job at tying in her personal life with the natural world. It seemed more like Ray's life existed more naturally within nature and in Gift's book, it seemed more like an effort or a different part of her life. Something that is separate and has to be given an allotted amount of time.

What is interesting about Ray's book is that even when she isn't talking about nature, she seems to be talking about nature. The term "nature" seems to take on a persona that is more than just Abbey's snakes, desert, and politics, or Gift's weeds and out-of-placement. When reading Ray's book, I didn't feel as if she manuevered the metaphorical camera of this book to focus on something specific. I felt like everything in the book existed together within one scene. There wasn't any evident, obvious change.

What makes Ray's book different from other books I've read is that nature isn't just something outside herself and out in the world. It's in people, as well. When I read various stories about her father, how crafty and inventive he was, I felt like I was reading about a crafty, inventive animal...but an animal that is close, familiar, and intimate to the narrator. Same goes with her siblings or her college "lover" and the wild things he did and encouraged her to do.

I've been steeping ideas in my brain concerning what I want to write my essay about (for this class). I know that once I choose the idea I want to go with and sit down with it, it will flow out easily. It has been several months since I've written an essay. Before I even read this book, though, I thought that I would write about my excursions in these dangerous places in nature that resemble my dreams so well. So, it was really nice and relieving to read Ray's book. It's good to know that there are people who enjoy those parts of the world and also try to make all the various branches of their life--be them classes, friends, decisons--beneficial to the passions in their life.

Place Entry #4

It is pouring rain. The rain forces me to sit closer, under the jutting entrance of the cave. If I wanted to, I could lay my body down upon the lowering grade at this entrance. Half in and half out of something. Story of my life. Seriously, I find it interesting that all this morning, I was surrounded by people, clothed for the rain, droplets dotting their hair. I was at work at the bookstore where many of these people walk around with their hot teas or lattes, the only danger or discomfort being a burnt tongue or a paper cut. After work, there were even more people. I drove up to the Carneige Library in Oakland, spent fifteen minutes finding a place to park. To keep myself from imploding, I amused myself with the fact that within the hour, I would be at my "wild spot" where none of these people will follow me. I imagined everyone being me for a moment. Driving into the city just to pick up three reserved books and finding out that one is still in transit from another branch. An hour of routes and suburban roads later, their works pants are rolled up mid-claf, flip-flops replace their fancy shoes, a hat sits on their heads, and they walk the half mile to a cave just to write for an hour or so. What if everyone had a wild spot they had to visit? I'm glad all those people are in the city. Leave me alone.

And so it is raining. And thus this pace exists the way it does. I just took my flip-flops off and placed my feet into the cave. This is my first time writing here when my back isn't to the cave. This is my first time writing here when my back isn't to the cave. Half in, half out, I am. It is a shame that we go inside of something when it rains. Sweaters, umbrellas, buildings, homes, porches, cars, under bridges, awnings. We let the rain stop us from our routine outdoor plans. I try to go running a couple days a week and I go even when it rains.

Strangely, the cool air that comes from te bowels of te cave smells like peanut butter. Not real peanut butter, but that grainy, fake peanut butter in crackers. Or maybe it smells like peanut butter cookies. I wonder why that is. I'm rubbing my feet hard against the slope of this ccave and it is hard as cement despite having a crumbling, clay-like appearance. Above me there appears to be forgotten spiderwebs. Webs that spiders give up on. I guess we do that a lot. Abandon beautiful things without really caring or giving a second thought. I do that with my writing, I guess. Not to say that what I write is beautiful, but it has potential. I can go through all my junk and probably find dozens of my own abandoned webs.

My toes are cold, pruny, and dirty from debris from walking here in the rain. I want for my body to really react or interact with this place. I could probably take all my clothes off now if I desired to. I'd be cold and get bitten by mosquitoes, but that is okay. Perhaps I should save that for a dry day.

The sun is shining at my back, so I turn around to see the sun reflect in white gleams on all the wet leaves. I t makes me think of Bob Ross and his landscape art. How he effortlessly dipped his fan brush in the white oil and dotted the evergreens, his happy trees. So little effort, it seems, goes into creating something so beautiful or realistic. Keep in mind, I watched Bob ross after "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood". Bob Ross is like Monet to a five-year-old. Still the mosquitoes are biting. Each week, I have been getting a new constellation of bites on my legs. I would like to bring a magnifying glass and look at a mosquito more carefully. Hopefully, I'd find something so beautiful about it that I'd consider not killing it.

The sun's even brighter now and here I am, still dipping my feet in the cave and my head in the sun. A mile away, my dad is warm and his feet are socked and he's on his knees in front of the TV, ready to watch the Steeler game. I mentioned before that I just moved back in with my parents. And I love being home with them again during this season. I miss sitting with my dad as he watches football. I'd sit there pretending to care as I actually did homework. And now I have that again, for a little while, anyway. He has no idea that right now, I am half with him and half elsewhere. He has no idea that I'm at this cave, shooing mosquitoes, wondering if it is actually still raining or is the wind blowing droplets from the leaves? If it weren't for my father taking me bike riding for the first time on the trail that is near this cave...if it weren't for him instilling a curiosity in nature within me by taking me hiking and fishing...I would not be here craving peanut butter cookies, yet being so far from eating one.

Now it's time to go "watch the game".

Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

Brutal writing.



I like this idea of Abbey's a lot. To me, it means capturing nature through words that are not biased or based on history, formerly perceived metaphors, or through romanticism. It is capturing nature for what it is, what it does, why it does, and how it is right now. I admire this idea because it takes "us" away from it. When we compare a cleomie flower to a firework exploding in the sky, we are comparing that natural element of the world to something more cultural, aesthetic, and memorable. The cleomie is no longer a flower, but a firework. I like the idea of capturing something for what it is, because that's exactly what is going on. My intent on living out my life is not to impersonate or imitate anything that is similar to myself. I want to get down with Abbey's "bare bones of existence....the bedrock that contains us." This leads to Abbey's mentioning of evocation vs. imitation. Abbey does not aim to imitate through writing, but to evoke emotion, thought, and visions. This is a wise move, I think.


Although I admire this idea of brutal writing a lot, I didn't capture as much of it as I would have liked in Abbey's writing. I don't know if it's me, but I noticed a lot of tone/voice changes within his various essays. Of course, that makes sense, because the tone changes with the content, but sometimes it felt as if different people wrote these essays. I can come up with a few examples of when I thought Abbey didn't follow his "brutal writing" idealism. His descriptions concerning the mating dance of the gopher snakes was interesting and somewhat ritualized. Although it is indeed a ritual, it seemed to be described too...flamboyantly? I'm not too sure. It was too much portrayed as a "dance" rather than a necessary mating ritual. But perhaps I am being picky or misunderstanding.

But I do want to try this out. I want the cave that I visit to just be a cave--no longer the cool, gaping mouth that breathes mosquitoes with its moss-scented breath. I want for the crows I hear among the trees to just be crows that call and call. They do not sing. They do not talk. They communicate and I must face the fact that I will never understand. Ha! What an interesting word to use there--Brutality. To whom is this idea being brutal? To the reader? Are cold-hard realities punishing and harsh? What about to the writer? Is there not any comfort in comparison or metaphor? I can appreciate that a black snake on the ground is just a black snake on the ground. I can appreciate that a black cat crossing my path is just a black cat crossing my path and not bad luck. But where is the fun? That's brutal. Reality and stripping. Stripping things of their likely entities in order to get to the true entity. It hurts to not turn the cool, dark cave into an object that warms me someow. To not turn it into a desirable womb or eggshell or home.

Wouldn't the most "brutal" writer be the person who does not write? Is the intent in writing almost always leaning towards "pedestalism"? Is the subject not memorialized or celebrated through decorated words, exaggeration, metaphor, and memory? As a person who wants to write, I often tell myself, "Don't be better at writing about this than you are at actually doing this." I am often envious of people who I come across and find talented or experienced in one thing or another, but do not document it through some creative outlet. They just do and that's good enough. No blogging about it later. No self-taken photographs of themselves doing it. No paintings that are inspired by it. I'm not raging against the arts here. I'm just cheering for (and envying) those who can experience art (brutal!) without having the need to document it through something else that can be shown off. I think that is art.

And wow, I think that was a huge tangent.

I really loved the essay "Water" because for a long time now, I have been fascinated by mechanisms of survival, be it emotional/psychological survival, evolutionary survival, or wilderness survival. Abbey's voice is very evident here. To the point and quite humorous. I really loved how he began this essay with a conversation he had with a tourist. A tourist mentions that the park will be more enjoyable if there were more water. Abbey claims that the park would not be the way it is, then, if there were water. How often we crave just one small change to our physical or emotional environment, thinking that one small change would just make us more content and not really change our environment completely. And how wrong we are! To receive that one small change is more profound than we'd like to believe. I also loved, though, how peaceful this conversation was between Abbey and the tourist. I often found myself surprised by Abbey's calmness for I always associated his name with brutality, cynicism, and impatience.

But in "Water", I like how the form of his writing mimicked the content. For instance, he is blunt about dehydration and knowing when to just shit-give-up when in a desperate separation in the desert. He is blunt, brutal, and rational. This tone or personality he has specifically in this essay reflects (I'd like to believe) nature itself and how blunt, brutal, and rational it is. I might be pushing it a bit by saying nature is rational. But I do believe that nature follows a course that is influenced by cause and effect, chain-reactions, actions and consequences.

When someone approaches me with a story of their luck or good fortune, I tell them that they should thank the world. I believe in the whole butterfly effect phenomenon and how consequences and paths line up or pass at just the precise moment and causes that lucky, good thing to happen. Every statement has its little reasonings behind it.

Place Entry #3

I don't feel the cool of the cave's mouth today as I did last week. And I just heard a man's voice over a speaker. Probably someone from one of the factories across the river. It's amazing that such intrusive sounds travel to a solitary and beautiful place such as this. To think that when I'm not here to hear it, there is always the beeping and humming sounds of these riverside factories. There is always the roar of traffic on Route 28, just across the river. Sometimes I can make out the sound of just one big rig or some teenager's high-powered engine. I wonder about those people in those cars, on those roads, and in those factories. Right now, I have one thing in common with a woman sitting at her kitchen table in Creighton, a mile away from where I am at now. We can both hear the music chiming from a church. It is approximately 12:00pm.

I am again sitting with my back to the cave on this hill. Below me, I see a chipmunk scurry along a fallen tree limb. He is just a skittering stripe down there, preparing himself for the winter. The leaves here are still green except for the fallen ones that lay curved and brown on the forest floor. The sun is more modest this week compared to last week but the colors are still glorious and the insects still land their teeth on my skin. What is the difference between a bug and an insect? When I think of "bug", I think of rounded grey creatures that burrow beneath stones and roll their food and pieces of home along the ground, slow. Potato bugs. Ants. Dung beetles. Insects, in my mind, have wings. When I say "insect", it is like a beat of the wings. The word seems more elegant and long.

The rocky wall that surrounds the opening of the cave seems very loose. I can blindly place my hand on any part of the wall and pull a piece of it loose. I can't help but wonder what this wall would look like if I stayed here all day and dismantled all the loose rocks one-by-one. Huge slabs of rock would collapse, of course. The entrance of the cave would be smothered by fallen rocks. It is definitely interesting to realize what an intergral part all those small, loose rocks play in the formation and deformation of this wall. I just picked up a small chunk of rock that no doubt used to be a piece of this wall. It is small enough to fit in that tiny pointless pocket one can often find inside the pocket of a pair of jeans. With little effort, and the use of one hand, I broke it apart. Wow, how this cave will certainly change just by the touch of one hand! It's as easy as bringing a curious child who touches and touches. It's as easy as a hiker running his hand along the wall for balance. It's as easy as lovers pressing their bodies against it for support. It's as easy as gravity.

*

I left the threshold of the cave so that I can further explore the area surrounding the cave. The topography here is breath-taking. There are lower parts where a lot of tall, stalky weeds grow, but then there are random levels and hills with small trails leading up them. It is sometimes easy to differentiate between a trail made by an animal such a a deer and a trail made by a human. Humans have appendages that jut out horizontal to the ground. When we move through brush, we do not enter it head first, but legs, hands, and arms first. We trample, break, and push away. We are a wide, shattered path. The path of an animal is thin and fluid. They do trample and sway their necks side to side, but they bend the leaves and grass like calm water. I followed a path of bent grass, up a hill where I found little makeshift huts made of tires, branches, and rocks. I'm guessing some crafty kids make these little shelters for when they play paintball. I came across four or five of these and am sitting in one right now. The children or teenagers who built these are probably in school right now, or they should be. I wonder if I had stayed long enough, I'd see them today. Doubt it.

I do not know how to spell the sounds the crows make in the trees. They begin with a vowel, I suppose. Eh. Eahl.They all of a sudden started talking. Some sound raspier than others. I can't see a single one of them.

While walking to this shelter, I came across a black snake, almost four feet long. It stretched long across my path, it's mouth open. I just moved out of a house that is infested with these snakes. Their skins hang from the rafters in the basement. I touch him and he doesn't move. I grip him slightly and he slithers away, but towards me at the same time. His mouth open at me, stuck mid-thought, smelling me.

Here I am by myself, just a short walk away from the cave. This area is new to me despite being so close to a part with which I am already familiar. It isn't that surprising. Many people live next to neighbors whose homes they've never been in. I am in a wilderness that belongs to a youth, most likely boys, who see this as an out of the way haven for a somewhat dangerous sport. I admire their craft and how natural it seems for them to adopt this place as a memory--as a place they can easily slip into and then out of.

The wind blows in the canopy above me and a squirrel clings to a tree, its body horizontal to the ground. It talks to a squirrel somewhere behind me. I hear four different bird calls and I can't help but wonder why I am so silent.

Place Entry #2

As soon as I climbed the rubble hill up towards the cave, I immediately felt the refreshing cool air that emits from the dark slope of the cave. Today is a warm day but still very nice. It is around 1 pm and the half-mile walk on the trail to get here was relaxing. It is a sunny day and as I sit here, I like to look at the forest below me and notice the contrast between the lime green, sunlit leaves and the darker leaves that brood in the cooler shadows. Mosquitoes fly around my face and feet. I am a warm, soft thing compared to the chalky grey cave, cool and careless behind me. The mosquitoes are biting through my thin shirt. I can hear, but not see, the barges on the Allegheny River. Just to let you know exactly where I am, I am north of Pittsburgh about thirty miles in a town called Arnold. This is the town in which I grew up and since five days ago, moved back to.

The trail that I walked on to get here used to be an old railroad track, but it is now gone and maintained as a private walking trail that has various trails meandering away from it and up the hills or down to the river bank. Because there used to be train tracks, there are also "ruins" of brick train stations, covered in grafitti and ivy. In the summer, any view of these structures are obscured due to thick bamboo-like weeds that grow taller than I am. From where I am sitting now, I can see what seems like a brick column, like a chimney, on the ground. If I walk past that a bit, there are brick walls to the left. I will have to bring my camera sooner or later.

On the tree next to me, a fuzzy vine of poison ivy snakes upwards. I always tell people that I can roll around naked in poison ivy and not get a rash. I'm not quite sure if that's true or not. I do know for certain that I have been exposed to it plenty of times but have never received a rash. This experience, though, is contrary to what Gift mentions in her book _A Weed By Any Other Name_. She says that the more you become exposed to poison ivy, the more likely that you will receive a rash.

Upon looking at the cave, I see various slabs of rock jutting outwards above me. And there are many colors. Rust orange. Any and every shade of grey. Light salmon. And there's the chalky, calcium-green splotches of lichen that give parts of the cave a crumbly looking texture. To the touch, the lichen is like a very dry and crumbly clay. And it smells just as moist and dirty as moss. It was not until I read Gift's book that I learned that moss and lichen are related. When I look up, I see ledges of rock with moss that hovers above the edges. It is not the dark green, compact, carpet moss, but the lighter, dryer, hair-like moss. The sunlight captures it brilliantly. There are also spider webs that adorn some crannies of the cave and since they are in the shadows, the silk of the webs take on a lavendar hue. One web in particular contains the outer skins of what looks like maggots. It reminds me of my dad's old fishing bait. I'd open up the blue plastic containers and find dried up adult maggots that have shed multiple skins.

I am looking at a particular splotch of lichen that takes on the silhouette of a plump angel. An angel with big hips and small wings. I wonder how that angel blotch will change over the next few weeks or months.

Sometime soon, I would like to bring someone along so that I can get a second pair of eyes. It is amazing what one can miss when looking in one spot and not another. This is a very beautiful spot, not very disturbed by human contact. I cannot help but wonder, though, what it must have looked like when the train station was still in working order. It makes me think of a television show I once watched that documented what would happen to the Earth if humans all of a sudden vanished. This documentary gave a timeline for various things like how long a pet would survive.

The wind blows in small gusts and is bringing golden leaves down from their boughs. They all seem to lay on the ground in the fetal position, their little spines and ribs too obvious. I pick up a small yellow leaf, speckled with brown dots. It has eleven veins on each side of the stem and the top bends downwards as if ashamed. A small brown ant walks along it much like how I would walk in an open field.

And these leaves, man, they don't gracefully fall like they're in some scene from Fantasia. Behind me, I hear them land crunch on the ground like something on purpose. They're heavy with some knowledge of the fall. Sometimes I feel like something has been thrown at my back. A pebble? A stick? Is someone there?

No, it's a leaf.

A Weed By Any Other Name

Before I began to read this book, I began thinking about weeds that I have grown up with and can identify. Last summer, when I was up visiting my camp (property my family owns up north near Brooksville), I came across what I thought was a beautiful looking fungus. It shot up from the ground like a stalk and it was transparent and waxy in appearance and to the touch. It had a mauve hue to it, as well, and I found it to be absolutely gorgeous. Not only did it shoot upwards from the ground, but at the very top, it nodded downwards like in prayer. Beautiful! It looked almost like an archetypal angel, for some of the tendrils along the stem sprouted out like wings.

Last fall, I was talking with a friend of mine who graduated as an undergrad from Chatham last year and she studied botany. I described this wonder-of-the-woodlands to her and she didn't exactly know what I was talking about, so I finally just googled the description and voi-la! I learned that this mystical wildflower (not fungus!) is Indian Pipe (monotropa uniflora). Quite a beautiful name, right? But there are several more beautiful names that I feel accurately describe the flower such as Ghost Plant and Corpse Plant.

Besides this Indian Pipe that I discovered last summer, there are plenty more weeds that I grew up with including Morning Glory, Plantain (I, too, often chimed mama had a baby and its head popped off), dandelion, crabgrass, clover, red clover, ivy, poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, and much more. My yard at this moment is adorned with several weeds and the morning glory is really hopping and taking over the clothesline. While finishing the book this morning while sitting on my porch swing, I took a look at the rest of my yard before my father cut the grass. There is plenty of clover, the morning glory, ivy is crawling up along the brick house next door, and moss is growing near the water spigot next to the porch. Surely there are danelions and plantains in the yard, as well. It's all very beautiful.

I thought it was very interesting when Gift, in her book _A Weed By Any Other Name_, talked about going to the Springdale golf course to spend an evening picnicing on the grass with her family. I can imagine that when sitting on that grass without a blanket would be very soothing despite the chemicals used to make the grass the way it is. It made me think of the moments when I sat in various fields in Virginia where I went to college. When I'd sit in those fields, ready to open a book and do some work, I'd be plagued by bugs. They'd crawl up my pants and land on my book and every single tickle on my skin had to be a bug. And the grass down there is harsh and rough. Spiney. I wasn't comfortable and I eventually packed my stuff up and went back to my dorm to do my work. That grass, of course, was not maintained with chemicals. I do not mind insects one bit, but they can be quite the distraction when I go out there on purpose just to be productive. So, reading about that moment at the golf course had a huge impact on me. I'm not too sure how, but it made me look at my bug-infested situation in a different light, I guess. I now understand why those fields were so alive with insects compared to other fields I have lounged in.

Before I began to read this book, I thought the book would be more informative and scientific than it actually was. I really like how personal the book was and it was very nice to personally know the locations Gift mentions in the book. I have hiked the Rachel Carson Trail where she came across the turtle. I drive through Springdale almost everyday. I have visited Rachel Carson's Homestead. I know about Homewood and O'Hara Township. It was very appropriate for her to use the metaphor of herself being a weed in Pittsburgh, for she was new to the area and belonging in Pittsburgh in her own way, even if it is not the way of the "natives". I like this specific passage on page 72:

I remember the thrill of finding the weed, leafy and flowerless, appear suddenly on its matching page in my guidebooks, and feeling for just a moment that I knew my place. I belonged here--in weed science, in this Kentucky soybean field--among the spurges...

...I hope by now that my transplanted friends in Greenville feel equally at home in their soil, with or without the spurge.

I loved the chapter on moss. I have a very intimate connection with moss and as simple as it seems, it was very interesting to read that "moss is probably the reason we crave carpets in our homes"(89). I wish I could have seen more of that in this book: how our domestic lives are a reflection of our wild lives. I am trying to think of some examples. Having indoor plants is an obvious one. Perhaps sleeping in high-up beds is a reflection of how we used to sleep high up in trees in order to stay away from predators. Stuff like that.

I also wish that there were illustrations in this book. It would have been interesting if Gift gave us a detailed illustration for some of these weeds that she explained so eloquently. I especially loved how she explained plantains. I didn't know what she was talking about when she mentioned plantains earlier in the book until I got to the actual chapter about them. The way she described walking through them and getting them stuck in her toes immediately sparked the same memory (not too long ago memory). "Now I know what those are called!" I said to myself.

I think that the first time I ever p

aid very close attention to a weed was when I went truck driving with my father right bef

ore I started high school. We went on a two-week trip across the country. On our way back, we

went through the deep south where I saw a lot of kudzu. Kudzu, when you look at it, is very haunting (I like the ghostly, creepy looking weeds!). They look like creatures fresh from a swamp, smothered by a green that threatens to pull them under again. Kudzu is an invasive species and invades trees within the Appalachian Mountains and these trees take on human-like figures like this one that looks a lot like a woman in a dress, trying to give something to the sky. Her hair is tied back, but isn't she beautiful?

Place Entry #1

I used to ride on this trail everyday. It is a road-width trail that meanders through the woods along the Allegheny River. This trail is not even a mile from my home, but feels so separate--so foreign--and when I slide my body through the fence and re-enter "civilization", I still feel alien and unique to the cars passing me by to drive up Drey Street to go to K-Mart or Family Video. I am having a hard time choosing a specific spot along this mile-long trail to sit and observe for the next few months. 

But I find myself sitting here next to a gaping mouth in the ground, a cave. A couple of years ago, I had a very adventurous day. I packed rope and a flashlight and headed out here to explore the areas off the trail. I followed a scent that day--the scent of soap. It took me to trees with white blossoms that fell like snowflakes onto the ground. Those trees are still here and I have yet to identify them. But I came across this cave that is nothing but a grey hole in the ground. I look at it now and think to myself, "What the hell possessed me to go in there?!" To enter this cave, you must lay on your stomach and enter legs first. As you further enter the cave, the opening becomes smaller; just a puddle of green leaves and sky. Insects crawl along the ceiling right next to your head. Soon enough, you're able to get on your knees and then stand up, much like those charts that show the evolution of man as he progresses from walking on feet and fists to sauntering as a biped. 

I will go back into this cave someday. I've been meaning to, but haven't. As I sit here next to this cave, I am on a sort of edge or cliff overlooking a small meadow where a stream flows through. On that one adventurous day I had years ago, I got a deep cut that left a Nike sign of blood on the inside of my ankle. I washed it in that stream and was very tempted due to dehydration to even drink from it, but didn't. 

Today is a crisp day and the ground isn't as wet as I thought it would be considering I'm sitting in the shade. Yesterday was the first day that I noticed the leaves were changing. I have never seen this specific place, though,  in the fall or winter. I usually just rode my bike or walked it during the summer. 

The Allegheny River nearby has always been a very haunting river to me. I have many memories of it, including a memory of finding a dead, floating piglet on the shore. From here, I can hear the sounds that come from the river. The metallic sounds of the barges and the shhhhhh noise of sand from the riverbed being dropped onto the barge. And there is also the low hum of the power plants that follow the river south towards Pittsburgh. 

Once in a while, I get a disturbing feeling when I visit this place. I have been told stories about the homeless that come here. Right down this edge and past the meadow a bit, there is evidence of small fires and the newspapers surrounding those old fire pits date August 26th. It could be teenagers, it could be grown men with beer on their breath. There are cans and trash scattered here and there. I have morbid thoughts sometimes. I will pass a place up or see a random dark place on this earth and say, "That would be a good place to die." This would be a good place to die. Inside this cave. Is it instinctual to want to die alone and in a dark place? Animals do it. I'm only wondering. Who said it?

I wonder as I wander...

Response 1: What nature is to me and what it is in nature that I want to explore.

On my own, and due to my desire for solitude, I have walked in "nature". I know that the sound of walking through the web of an orb-weaving spider sounds like the peeling of a large chunk of sun-burnt skin. And that is exactly what it feels like after accidentally walking through one. I know that just the act of delicately brushing it away can lead to a sting that develops into a small, painful welt. Although it is truly a pest on the hiking trail, I still cannot help but stop sometimes and look around at these immaculate webs that float like CDs, reflecting the sun, a spiney dot of arachnid right in the middle. 

I like to walk.

But how I would love to saunter. Thoreau begins his essay "Walking" by explaining the difference between walking and sauntering. The etymology alone is fascinating--

"...from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going 'a la Sainte Terre,' to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, 'There goes a Sainte-Terrer,' a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander."

In my opinion, to desire to be a saunterer is very romantic and dreamy. It is easy to fantasize about. There is a wild freedom there. Some of you may have read the book _Into the Wild_ about Christopher McCandless, an intelligent young man who gave up all his belongings and ties and sauntered westward to Alaska where he ultimately and romantically died. No doubt he was inspired by this specific passage I came across while reading "Walking". 

"...prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again,--if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk."

That's interesting that Thoreau put "and are a free man" before "then you are ready for a walk." Some people, myself included, would feel that the walk itself is the freedom part. But it seems here that there can be freedom without that walk. And that is absolutely true, isn't it? This leads to my question: Why is it that when people desire to be free and outstanding that they feel that going back to "nature" is the correct answer? Is going back to nature a going-backwardness? Is it about roots? Can going back to nature be done without a huge ego? Can't someone find solace with themselves without going into the wild? Why do we have to be animal to prove ourselves to ourselves? We are animal. Okay, that's not just one question, but a series of questions and actually, I can come up with plenty more. But ultimately, why is "nature" the haven or the answer? People complain about a society that doesn't care about them. What makes people think nature will? 

I just had a beautiful image in my head. I'm sure someone has already painted it, but I'll explain it right here and now. In the background, there is a line of trees or a forest. It's just a mesh of greens and browns. There is a slight appearance of sky above the canopy of trees. It's not very blue, but just a normal white/blue/greyness. Now, in the foreground, there are people walking towards the forest. A bunch of skirts and suits walking towards the green and brown abyss. Cellphones to their ears. Children holding basketballs against their hips, walking towards the forest. A taxi cab in the nearer foreground--the driver, stepping out of the yellow cab, a cigarette hanging on his lips...all of them just walking into those dark woods. Isn't that illusion interesting? When you look into a patch of forest and it looks so dark, but when you finally enter it, there isn't so much darkness.

This image in my head reminds me of that famous painting of the shepherd herding the sheep. His back to us, he holds his long cane and leads the sheep into the forest. So, I establish a connection between my mental image and an actual painting. In the painting, there is indeed a leader--the shepherd. But who is the leader of the people who actually go into the wild? I don't think people do it because of free will. I think that such decisions are difficult and one must actually prepare themselves for such a sojourn...a sojourn that is more difficult than staying and dealing with the day-to-day scenario we are all going through.

The nature writing class I am in right now is not only exposing me to different writers and their ideas, but also to fellow classmates who are from all over and have varying experiences with nature. Like in any class, I like to pay close attention to these people and make connections with what I assume about them and who they really are. I am very excited to learn about everyone and find out about their own intimate relationship with nature and what they believe it to be. I don't know how to define nature, to be honest. I don't like to take a stance on nature and the environment, either. I feel that I don't have a place in such situations. I do not like to commit to a specific ideal or fashion of thought. I simply like to make observations and come up with small conclusions. I do have passion for nature and that passion is through appreciation. But my appreciation doesn't consist of eating organically or expecting everyone to be good to the environment. A lot of that is lifestyle and fad. People congregate and make their gardens or have their elaborate organic meals. I think that true passion can be done alone. If you can't appreciate or do something by yourself without the need of others, then that is a flawed passion. It's not passion at all. I like to think that I have passion for the natural world. Most of my experience with it consists of being alone and choosing by myself to take myself out there and get sliced by the briar and succumb to the gravity on steep hiking hills. And yes, I'll finish my hike and go get an ice cream or go to Starbucks because I belong in that world just as much. That is nature.

I am going to encounter a lot of difficulties in this class, but I like a good challenge. I try not to be biased with my thoughts and concerns. I am going to be confused as to what people believe is nature. But we often forget to ask another important question when we ask what is nature? To ask that question makes us very "other". So, here's a very important question:

Who are we?