When I was a kid growing up in the suburbs, I spent countless hours in the woods. My siblings and I would play make-believe games, build forts, and scramble up trees to look out over the farm fields. If I went out by myself, I loved sitting by the creek waiting quietly to watch the world come to life. I realized that when I stopped moving, everything else seemed to move more. Frogs climbed the creek bank, snapping turtles emerged from the deep river eddies, and hawks chased squirrels around tree trunks—and I could take it all in as an invisible observer so long as I didn’t fidget. Everything seemed so enrapt with its own purpose that when I sat still I felt I’d been given a backstage pass to the cycles of life outside my door.
I remember crouching to watch a beetle walk across the path when a fat garter snake slithered right underneath me. I marveled at its smooth scales and the way it seemed to glide effortlessly across the ground, slow and calm and completely unafraid of me. Another time while sitting at the base of a tree, a stick insect fell from the sky and landed on my shoulder. His legs looked as thin as grass clippings, and he held onto my clothes with tiny clawed feet. I placed him on the tree trunk and watched him amble his way back up.
These hours of waiting and watching taught me about my more-than-human neighbors. I learned where toads liked to sleep in our backyard, where robins nested, and where turtles laid their eggs near the banks of the creek. I learned where wild onion and wild strawberries grew in the spring and where the best berry patches were in the summer. It’s not that I was some master tracker of a child—I simply paid attention to the patterns. I learned where the toads slept because I found toads sleeping in the same place, nestled amongst moss and sandy soil, multiple times. I learned where the turtles laid eggs because I found empty eggshells near a hole in the ground. And I learned where the berries were because kids just have a knack for finding berries. The earth will teach you to pay attention if you listen to it, and it might even reward you with cool toads and tasty free snacks.
The simplicity of that joy was astounding, and I never questioned it. But the knack I had for finding berries and witnessing hawk hunts has gotten rusty with age. Like not practicing a language, my fluency has faded with inactivity. I’m still trying to practice by watching birds and sniffing the occasional flower, but my efforts often resort to praying that I can pay attention. Rather than returning naturally, when I step outside it feels forced and incongruous at times, especially after an entire day in front of a computer screen. Multiply that incongruity by an entire year of Zoom grad school, and it feels obvious why my ability to notice the natural world’s subtle details has faded.
Two years ago I started grad school with hopes of figuring out where things went wrong with humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Along with that, I wanted to know how we could make it right again. In a few days, after countless hours of essay writing, presenting, and conversation groups, I’ll be graduating with a Master of Science. As it stands, I can’t say I’ve got the answers to those questions I came in asking. But who knows, maybe it’s written on the diploma?
School didn’t answer my questions, but it did help me ask new ones, like why do I rarely realize that I live on land stolen from Indigenous people? Also, am I okay with that recognition—both the rarity with which I realize it and the fact that it’s true whether or not I realize it? And if I am at peace with that, should I be? I’m also prodded to ask why we refer to the National Parks as “America’s Best Idea” when that idea came about by forcefully removing people from their homes and setting aside land like a living museum. Why do we perpetuate the idea that humans are a disease on the land when we very much evolved on this planet and are meant to be a part of it as much as any plant, animal, or living thing? We’re all a part of this living system, we all belong, and we are wholly and utterly reliant on this planet.
I came to school looking for answers, and I’m leaving now asking more questions than when I arrived. But I’m hoping that now I’m asking questions worth pursuing the answers to. Still, just asking questions doesn’t feel like the only action. There is a great need for civil disobedience. There is a great need for intersectionality and listening to the perspectives of diverse groups. And, I’ll argue, there is a great need to step outside without an agenda, without the need to save something, and open yourself up to the simplicity of the joy that comes from munching a ripe wild berry on a hot summer day.
Jon Gorter (‘17) graduated from Calvin with degrees in English and environmental studies and holds an MS in natural resources from the University of Michigan. He enjoys fly fishing, mushroom foraging, and waterfall scrambling near his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
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I love this reflection, and resonate with the joys of a childhood spend outside exploring and the tension and sadness that comes with realizing my life doesn’t look the same way anymore. Thanks for sharing.
Life is all about chasing the answers to questions that may never be found. Doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile, though.
There is a beautiful simplicity in the natural world, though. You enabled a moment of nostalgia for me, regarding my own childhood. I also would like to just sit a moment in nature, and notice.