I voluntarily get lost in the woods. Why would I want to escape a chasm of beauty surrounding me at every turn? Walking through it means bare feet touching cold, slightly damp mud, leaves shaking off water from last night’s rain in droplets that tickle when they hit me, the sun peeking through branches, invading the forest with yellow warmth, and birds singing one song next to me and a different one somewhere further away. It means encountering weird-looking fungi and prodding it with a stick to watch it fall apart and imagining it decompose, or turning over a rock and finding tiny little bugs crawling all over it in anticipation of danger. It means a chance to find fresh air and nature that cannot be found confined in a building. It means a chance to explore. Grabbing a friend and just spending hours on an adventure is my ideal weekend. Maybe we will encounter a hawk, or see caddisfly cases in the creek. Maybe we will discover something new.
Exploration is more than bringing a pair of binoculars to a hike though. Especially in the modern world, it’s finding new information through the internet, books, your own research, or even within yourself. This is something I have discovered in studying for Science Olympiad, where I studied for a forestry event by hiking through the woods and identifying trees, then later reading about different species in field guides. I found information on astronomy with Wolfram Alpha and the knowledge of my 65-year-old physics teacher.
But every time I return to the woods, I don’t find answers: I ask myself what I can do to sustain this simple beauty…
Across the Table 