The deadline looms.
A busy day, in the way every day is while on vacation. Not so much by doing a lot. More from existing in the heat of the sun. My energy quickly drains while at the beach, in particular. It’s my least favorite space to be. I find the beach pointless — to sit under the sun for hours at a time, drinking and listening to music, your skin burning. To visit for a day or two is one thing. To stay for a week is another.
The bay interests me much more this year. There’s something about a flooded land where bird and fish coexist. Where bugs of various sort do what they can to survive. I wish to explore more of this ecosystem, to learn more about what happens in this area as the beach across the way fills with people and noise.
Truthfully, I should better prioritize learning about the landscape around me. The woodlands around my home deserve much more; they should have at least one steward, one individual who is willing to vouch for them and learn their intimacies like no other may ever know. I wish to focus both my lens and my mind on the oaks and the sycamores, the pines and the birches. I want to learn how each of these trees interact not only with one another but with the mushrooms and ferns, the birds and the bears.
Why? What is the purpose of obtaining such knowledge?
Firstly, I strongly believe in the pursuit of knowledge throughout one’s life. The moment you stop learning is the moment your life declines. This isn’t an exaggeration: not only does your mind suffer from the lack of stimulation, so, too, do your social and emotional relationships. The individual who no longer learns has little to add to the conversation, for their knowledge base is too thin. What little connections they may have made in the past have now become outdated, and they have no way of changing that without acquiring new information.
More important than the social ramifications are the motivational consequences. If you are not passionate enough about at least one subject to continue wanting to learn about it through your life, how can you be motivated to do anything at all, past perhaps work a dayjob and drudge through your life?
Back more to my point, this being a nature newsletter and all.
Thinking about the bay, that singular visit thus far in the vacation…there was activated within my mind, deep within the recesses, a desire to put forth more effort toward learning. I have always been one to read the various signs put up by park rangers, informing you of the flora and fauna in the area or the history of the sites.
There’s more to learn than those signs provide, however. I wish to know which mushrooms grow in which areas and when. I wish to know which diseases are affecting which trees and how I can assist in the prevention of the spread of these diseases. I wish to know as much as I can possibly know about my local woodlands. This knowledge will make me a better person, a more caring individual, someone who has something to bring to any table to discuss.
Tomorrow, I will revisit the bay. I will watch the osprey fly in and out of their nest. Perhaps, if I pay enough attention, I may learn something — not only of the land but of myself.
— C