Nature's Teachings

As I sit on the bank, the mild sunshine warming me and cheerfully illuminating my paper, I listen to the sound of the creek before me, gurgling and gently splashing in a ceaseless flow of sound. I've been around running water for much of my life, and have heard this sound time and time again, but stopping to listen to it now, as I sit soaking in the scene, I appreciate it in a whole new way. There are background noises in this world which are our habit, or perhaps our nature, to tune out. We tune out the hum of fluorescent lights and refrigerators, and of branches rustling in the wind. When in a large auditorium, we tune out the voices all around us until they are naught but a steady drone of meaningless sound, inarticulate and unnoticed. We focus instead on the noises in the foreground. We focus on the voices of friends or those nearby, or on a lecture we're trying to fully grasp, and in focusing selectively on what we want to listen to, we lose the background. It is not until we consciously stop and listen and take it all in that we in any way truly absorb the world of sound.

This is, I think, most valuable in nature, when the sounds, sights, and other experiences of the senses are so pure and so worth fully experiencing. Closing my eyes, I carefully listen to the stream, tuning out the laughter of my friends just down the stream, and listening only to the gurgles and splashes of various pitches, some sounding remarkably like the "drop" sound a computer makes when you've done something wrong. These individual sounds are set against the ever-present background rushing, which I can only compare to static. It doesn't sound like static, however. It's softer than that. It seems like static with the rough edges smoothed, if that makes sense.

The sun ducks behind a cloud, and my gentle sunshine leaves me. It is a immediately a shade darker all around me, and I'm immediately much colder. I shiver slightly in my fuzzy, but thin, cardigan, and contemplate whether to relinquish my fleece jacket as a cushion to use it for its proper purpose. I decide that I'm not quite cold enough to give up my comfort yet, so I leave the jacket spread out beneath me, serving as a barrier between myself and the dead leaves and grasses that carpet the bank.

Returning to thoughts of nature, I gaze at the water. I watch in fascination as it forms ripples and dips and swirls, always moving right along, but dancing and playing as it does so. The sunshine has peeked back out for a brief moment of friendly warmth, and glints off the water, making it sparkle as though a thousand little white diamonds were floating on the surface, being carried along by the swirling and playful water. In the places where the sun isn't glinting, the water is beautifully transparent. Although it is tinted with an algae-like green, I can see perfectly through to the bottom, where the sharp outlines between rocks and pebbles move and blur rapidly; an ever-changing image, although I know the rocks are stationary.

Raising my eyes from the creek, I lean back, taking in the whole scene. I recline on my fleece jacket, leaning against my backpack, and I am surrounded by dead grass, leaves, twigs, and other natural things which thickly carpet the forest floor. Some slender stalks of bushes which are almost big enough to be trees have put down roots right on the very edge of the shoreline, and I have to wonder how they survive with so little soil to grow in. Nonetheless, they look healthy enough; tall and strong and budding with little green leaflets. They look very much alive, and I find myself wishing them the best in their precarious place of life. They make me think of one of my mom's favorite sayings, "bloom where you're planted," meaning that a person should create beauty and make the best of things, regardless of circumstances. This seems manifest in these thriving bushes before me.

Widening my view to take in even more of the natural beauty around me, I look across to the opposite bank, which is pebbly for about a foot, before it becomes grassy. Several yards further on, there is a steep incline about five feet up, draped and covered with mosses and grasses. And beyond this incline, I see the forest.

In the foreground, there are several birch trees, standing tall and proud and straight as if they were sentinels. Their branches are neatly and evenly dispersed, budding with leaves that are the epitome of young spring green. A lone spruce, looking short and dark and scraggly, stands among them. The contrast makes me want to pity the poor little tree, although I like to think its feelings haven't suffered. Beyond the sentinel trees, the different trees grow less distinct, becoming the many mottled greens of the woods. Spruce, birch, and others begin to meld together and become a beautiful collage.

And so, to complete my picture, I lean back and gaze at the sky. Looking through the sparsely budding branches from the trees behind me, I see that the patch of sky above me is completely blue. It's a smooth and perfect blue, which can only be described as that ideal color, sky blue. In other places in the sky, I see fluffy clouds, some friendly white, others more darkly shaded and ominous. Some are tiny, while others seem to take up large portions of the sky.

The sun has ducked in behind a cloud of the latter type, and doesn't promise to soon return to warm me. As I begin to shiver, I decide that the time has come to rise and to once more join the world. For the past while I have been sitting here, I have been a passive observer, watching and noting and appreciating, and perhaps reflecting on my own life in relation to what's around me. Now, however, I will return to that life, having perhaps just a tad more wisdom. Perhaps I will remember to listen to the background and appreciate its every nuance. Perhaps I will remember to "bloom where I'm planted," with this real-life manifestation in my mind. Perhaps I'll be less apt to judge and compare people who are different, thinking about the stolid little spruce among the birch. And maybe I'll remember that there's always a ray of hope, and that when you least expect it, the sunshine may peek out again, as it just did.

Creative Writing Contest

2001 winners