Each Day is Unique

“Roughly four thousand years ago, when swarms of slaves were finishing the pyramids in Egypt’s desert as burial palaces for her pharaohs, strong westerly winds were heaping sand up into these hills, sand that retreating glaciers had left after gouging out the Great Lakes, sand washed to the coast when lake water rose- thirty, forty feet higher than levels we know today- and eroded the land.”

                                                                                          -Gayle Boss, “Dunetop Dying”

On Sunday I went to Warren Dunes State Park. It’s too bad it’s not good for the dunes to be walked on, because they are a truly amazing sight to behold. They are always evolving shape and size. Warren Dunes is a masterpiece of nature complete with slopes impossibly steep and unbelievably high. Plus, I knew this was one of the last chances I would get to walk barefoot in the sand before winter. And honestly, finishing Tom Springer’s Looking for Hickories on the beach versus in my cinderblock dorm room? There wasn’t much debate.

Time passes slowly watching the water. Sometimes it’s so interesting though I can’t look away. Every second millions of waves are toppling over each other, pushing towards the beach. The water pulsates and it’s entrancing, almost hypnotic. After a busy week of school, with the promise of an even busier one to follow, going to the beach makes one slow down. There’s no internet and a cell phone is more than just physically burdening. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s so liberating to be free of that technology.

Nature Near Home

Not many people honestly want to hike 10 miles to reach a destination (however beautiful it may be) just to turn around and complete the walk back. In other words, not everyone is up for the Appalachian Trail. But it only takes 15 minutes to reach one of Kalamazoo’s highest points, and it’s definitely worth it. Looking out on the valley below, I wondered if those little cars so far away could see me too. Or maybe if they at least recognized the grandeur of the huge hill I was perched on. Probably not, but either way the trip to the Nature Center was a day that Tom Hennen (author of the poem “The Life of a Day”) would call “wildly nice.”

I can’t say how many times this semester I’ve heard some variation of the phrase “you protect what you know and love.” The Nature Center isn’t terribly far from my house, and while I was there I noticed so many characteristics in the land that were familiar and important to me personally. The Kalamazoo River being one, and also just the trees and native plants in general. I love the way golden light shines through the leaves to make a dappled pattern on my path. I’m so glad there is a place close to my home where nature can thrive to such an extent, essentially undisturbed by the busy metropolis just 10 quick miles away. 

Today's too nice to spend it any other way than riding on our bikes.

Riding bikes in the fall is the best. The cool temperatures and colorful scenery make for a pleasant trip wherever you are going. 

My two most prized material possessions in the world are my bike and my backpack. I’ll humor myself and say I’m not hugely preoccupied with consumerism, but I can justify these things. They’re both useful and reusable: I can ride my bike to work and I don’t need to waste gas getting there. My backpack is good at holding everything I need plus some things I don’t. I have no license and no car, so when I really need to escape the dorms, my bike is key in making the 14-mile trip home independently. Carrying books and water that distance would be rough without my backpack. That’s how I accommodate nature; I ride my bike and I don’t use grocery bags because I have one with a lifetime warranty.

 “I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively instead of skeptically and dictatorially.” I found this E.B. White quote in the beginning of my copy of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. I feel like the idea of human’s need to dominate nature has been a theme of my environmental classes this semester. Through the building of dams in John McPhee’s Encounters with the Archdruid to the huge diversions of water that rob the Great Lakes in The Great Lakes Water Wars by Peter Annin. Even Bill Bryson conquers nature by hiking the mountains of the Appalachian Trail in A Walk in the Woods. The latter being a somewhat positive example of man being challenged by the grandeur of nature and overcoming the harsh realities of the outdoors (rodents, bears, insects, inclement weather and MOUNTAINS). Similarly, I love making it to the top of hills on my bike, I try to make that the only way I triumph over nature on a daily basis (though admittedly this is a small victory). Yet Westnedge Hill has a way of sneaking up on me even when I’ve been dreading it all day. For that it will always have my respect. Nature always wins. When we’re gone, the little weeds in the sidewalk cracks will grow so huge they’ll break up parking lots and there will be forests there once again. 

I wish Kalamazoo was like this.