Don't Fence Me In

Patches of grass poke through the reflective, melting snow. Vernal pools engulf the crease where two hills meet at the bottom. Trees sit firm and steady only to move when an occasional gust of wind blows or a furry creature moves from limb to limb. The weather is warm for winter and the sunlight shines brightly over the sea of white and now visible green.

                

The houses within my neighborhood are tightly packed. Little room is left in front, between, and behind each living space. Still, nature finds its way to inhabit the snug quarters. The piercing sunlight produces dark overcasting shadows off the houses making the shaded sections experience a sort of nighttime effect.

              

Three houses sit within my view, each evenly spaced. The left and right houses have grey, moisture soaked, decade old fences still holding their ground. However, the fence on the right is missing part of its square outline at the back left corner. Usually a tightly woven neighborhood produces quick and lasting neighborly friendships but in my case, these neighborly friendships have all but dissolved.

                

There always seems to be a pair of eyes watching your every movement while outside. I become fairly annoyed at the fact that everything someone does is more likely than not, observed by the vast majority of the neighborhood. This very intimate setting is something I do not strive for in my future living situations.

                

While I ponder my thoughts about nosey neighbors, a grey squirrel scurries along the ground in search for food. Could it be that the squirrel is in search of the nuts buried long ago in the fall? Bouncing from point A to point B, the squirrel seems content in its daily adventure. Often stopping and looking around before reaching the base of a tree, the squirrel quickly climbs the bark and jumps from branch to branch. Seems like a really effective way to move about. If only I was small, nimble, and light enough for a skinny tree branch to hold me. Overall, the day is vibrant, animated, and warming. Truly a thoroughly relaxing afternoon.

        

Author's Note: The title comes from a song sung by Bing Crosby. Take a listen!

Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters - Don't Fence Me In        

Black Women and the Wilderness - Reflective Post

     Evelyn White talks about an invisible fear that haunts every activity she tries to do. In her piece, Black Women and the Wilderness, she states that her “fear is like a heartbeat, always present, while at the same time, intangible, elusive, and difficult to define” (White, 1999). Attending a women’s writing workshop, Evelyn realizes just how powerful this fear of race and the unknown has become when she consistently declines invitations to explore the great outdoors. She is frightened by the fact that her color of skin might lead to her being taunted, attacked, raped, or even murdered. Venturing into the outdoors has the possibility of her engaging in an unwelcomed experience. This fear has deeper roots that have grown from her childhood in the 50’s and 60’s. Her experiences as a colored individual in a segregated world and her memories of stories about black girls being bombed in church and a young male named Emmett Till being beaten and lynched for a harmless act of whistling at a white woman only embrace her fear of the outside world. Still, being much older and having the benefit of now living in a somewhat more peaceful and understanding world, she decides to take a rafting trip on the McKenzie River. This trip reconnects herself to her African ancestry and causes an “unsure but authentic shift from my painful past” (White, 1999). She allows herself to relax and feels that she is stronger at journey’s end. Since then, she is “less fearful, ready to come home” (White, 1999).

     I believe that Evelyn White had a legitimate fear. Being an individual of color in the 1950’s and 1960’s was no walk in the park. Our experiences shape who we are and what we do later in life. Her fear of the wilderness because of what unknown entity or experience may be lurking around is something she grew into. Besides racial tensions, there are other factors which may influence someone’s experience with nature such as sexual, cultural, and political. For example, having the cultural experience of growing up in the city compared to the countryside would greatly affect an individual’s perception of wilderness. Individuals within the city might never learn the necessities of survival or how to explore wilderness. Additionally, engaging too far into one political viewpoint and not expanding your horizon on other possibilities. Experiences with nature come in all forms and neither one way nor another is the correct way to absorb the outdoors.

White, E. (1999). Black Women and the Wilderness. Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.

A Frigid Day (In London Town)

A week has passed and just as we had all gotten use to the luke-warm, mild winter here in Central New York, the weather had other plans. Saturday was the first day to hit the negatives. As luck would have it, I was forced to work outside as the snow fell all around. The ground was pummeled in an electrifying fury and the park was covered in a blanket of white.

Everything came to a halt in the outside world. No one wanted to travel on the roads as no lines could be seen and the slightest jerk-motion of the wheel could cause one's car to impact the nearby snowbanks rendering your day worse than it probably already was.

My day started with the continued whiteout conditions of the previous night and the non-plowed roads of the park. My first task of the day was to get over to the lodge on the other side of the park and attempt to warm the place up before the guests arrived for that morning. I hopped into the parks and recreation truck and made it over there while fighting for traction the entire way. The initial drive over was easy as I had little hills to climb but the drive back to the office proved a daunting task.

I was unable to make it up the rather steep hill towards the office and after ten or so tries, I gave up and had to call for someone to come plow the roadways. Even after the plowing had finished (and the snow refused to let up) I was stuck at the bottom of the hill and had to have a much larger buildings and grounds truck tow me up it. Once I reached the top, I stored the truck in the garage and insisted that I be able to use the larger 4x4 instead. Having the 4x4 was of tremendous help and I was able to complete my tasks with much more ease.

Activity in the park (other than the lodge) was nonexistent. The whiteout weather covered as far as the eye could see and not even the car engines from the nearby I-690 were rumbling. I would say that it was the worst day of this winter so far and I was beyond elated when I was able to leave for the night and not be in the harsh, unforgiving snowstorm any longer. I can only hope that the tail end of this winter doesn't have many more surprises in-stored for everyone.


Author's Note: The title is a play on the song A Foggy Day by George Gershwin. Take a listen to the song as recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1953 and then by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong in 1956 for yourself.

Links:
Frank Sinatra Version
Ella & Louis Version (Track 7)

Beginning of February - A Chill Winter

It's almost unreal... how these last few winter months have neglected to engage in what they are known to do best. There is this creeping suspicion that each year the winters become less and less hostile and more mild. It's unsettling knowing that soon, some years down the line, this may become the norm. Still, there are two sides to every story (or feelings in this case). Who doesn't love days where you can freely walk about and not feel the full blast of negative degree winds pushing on your face? Feel the numbness and see the red fill the parts of your exposed body? I know I enjoy the mildness but honestly, it doesn't feel right.

Observing this "chill" winter at my place of employment, the day is bright, vibrant, and sunny. The temperature is holding steadily at a semi-comfortable number and the snow that had once fallen a few weeks back is now almost gone. A long row of seemingly dead but sleeping trees wait for the warmer months to once again sport their gowns of emerald leaves. A large mess of tangled and twisted bushes and shrubs make up the underbelly of the trees that lie in dormant.

I sit on a solid slab of pavement that stretches behind me and veers to the right in front of me. A ring of cold, somewhat dirty snow yet to melt in the 40 degree sunlight curves on the edge of the now exposed grass. It provides the only source of white in this landscape of brown, blue, and green. 

Up in the sky, many miles from the muddy, damp ground, an airplane peeks over the veiny-looking branches of the trees. The sky is clear and completely cloudless. The sky is an ocean of light blue. As the rumble of soundwaves generated from the plane hits my ears, I begin to wonder where the aircraft is going. Who is onboard? What kind of aircraft could it be? What do the passengers think of this cloudless mild day? If only it was easy to find out the answers.

Additional noise is coming from the nearby I-690. Car engines and the sounds of rubber wheels hitting the hard asphalt makes for a low hum which cannot be halted or unheard. At this instant, everything seems calm and peaceful, the world continues to spin and another day is about to be logged in Mother Nature's journal. The drama of everyday life seems to disappear and real bliss would be being able to cement myself in this moment.