Response 12: Reflections on the Semester

At the beginning of the semester, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this course. I had never tried to do any nature writing before, and I didn't know much about it. I was worried that I would have a hard time writing about nature, and that nature writing would be dull or overly idealized. As it turns out, I have been pleasantly surprised by the variety of writing that is termed "nature writing," and I'm glad that this class exposed me to so many different approaches and voices and styles. I found plenty of darkness and complexity in the works we read, and I definitely plan to continue to read nature writing in the future.

Before this class, I didn't see myself as a nature writer, but now I think I will incorporate descriptions of the natural world into my writing whenever possible. I've already noticed myself doing this in my writing for my nonfiction workshop. This class has shown me that descriptions of nature can be essential in placing a reader in the world of the narrative, and I've noticed myself thinking more about people (including myself) as outgrowths of their environments. As I think about some of the writing I'd like to do in the future, particularly about my travels in India and Korea, I feel like a whole new world has opened up to me in terms of what I can write about. For instance, when I lived in Korea, I first really understood how far from home I was when I noticed a black-and-white bird everywhere that I had never seen before. This bird was as common in Korea as a pigeon or a crow is here. At the time, I never thought of that bird as something I could write about, but now I can see developing it into a metaphor for my experience of the culture.

Surprisingly, I had never realized before that nature writing provides a logical way to connect my writing with my background in biology. I have wanted to find a way to write about the sciences for a long time, but I envisioned library-based research rather than observation of the natural world. Now I can see there is room for both of these possibilities.

I’ve also discovered that nature provides valuable material for meditative writing. Before this class, I would often take my journal outside and write as I sat somewhere in the natural world, but I would never write about the natural world; I would only write about my internal feelings or what was going on in my life. Through keeping my nature blog every week, I've learned that I can write about my internal world through writing about the natural world, and that this often happens unconsciously and unintentionally. As long as I observe what I see closely and stay with it and give it time, something emerges in my writing that is more than just superficial description. This has been a wonderful discovery for me; one of my issues with writing is trying to step outside of myself and engage my surroundings.

If I could take this class over again, I would want to spend more of the semester working on my final essay. That is what I initially aimed to do – I wanted to turn my blog about the cemetery into a longer piece. But when it came time to do that, I couldn’t figure out how to make it come together, I’m not quite sure why. I think I put a lot of time and energy into the blog week by week, but not enough time into thinking about how it could become an essay. I was disappointed not to be able to use my blog for my final project because I enjoyed it so much and felt very connected to it. I hope to do some type of project about the cemetery in the future, and I plan to continue my blog. I feel like I've only begun to explore the small clearing I chose as my site. I still haven't identified most of the species that live there, and I haven't seen winter or spring or summer there yet. Also, I've gathered some historical information about the cemetery and I've established some connections for conducting interviews.

I'm so glad I took this class and I've especially enjoyed keeping the blog. I hope to continue to write about the natural world as I move forward with my writing. Check back periodically for more cemetery posts!

Place 12: Dusk

Saturday November 28, 2009 4:43 pm

The first two things I notice when I come into the cemetery: the color of the light reflecting off bare tree branches, a glassy amber; and crows, there must be hundreds of them. As I start out on the road to the clearing, I see crows everywhere I look. Some perch atop tree limbs at the crowns of bare trees; silhouetted in the falling light they looked like large, fickle leaves. Others pose in the grass and among the tombstones and a few brazen souls sit right in the middle of the road. My eyes follow their black bodies from one to the next, as if trying to connect the dots or resolve their scattered forms into some larger, coherent shape: through the grass, across the road, up the hillside, into the trees, and as I approach they break ranks and rise into the sky. The air fills with caws and the beating of their black wings.

As I continue down the road, I pass two turkeys and numerous deer. The colors are so delicate at this time of day, right before dusk. Everything is cast in shades of rose and pale blue and gray. The sunlight catches the trees and illuminates them in its pink-orange glow.

The clearing looks so soft and gentle in this light. Crows are perched in the tops of all the trees, even the dead tree I've come to love so much. I notice that my dead tree is starting to look almost like the other trees, now that they've all lost their leaves. One difference is that the dead tree has only its thick, main limbs; it lacks the smaller capillary branches that the other trees have. And it’s a slightly different color, whitish-gray, while the other trees tend more towards brown. Despite these differences, it’s starting to blend in with the trees around it. Many more leaves have fallen since the last time I was here; almost every leaf is gone from the trees now. I was starting to doubt my memories of winter landscapes filled with nothing but barren gray branches. I try to enter the clearing slowly and quietly so the crows won't fly away, but I fail.

The floor of the clearing appears to have been torn up again. Maybe construction equipment has pushed the mounds of dirt back towards the side of the ravine. I'm not sure how it happened or why, but the puddles in front of the dirt piles are wider and deeper than I've ever seen them before. From a certain perspective, the sense of scale is lost and the mound of dirt in back of the puddle rises like a mountain beside a lake.

The muddy ground keeps a record of other creatures that have visited the clearing recently. I think these are deer tracks - this is something I hope to investigate more in the future.

I turn to face the other side of the clearing, to the elm tree and the piles of marble slabs, and to my surprise I see the moon glowing clear and soft in the blue sky behind a thicket of bare branches.

In each direction I look, the light and sky are so different. At the back of the clearing the moon shines in light blue twilight; out past the ravine, the pink dusk settles over hills and houses; and when I turn towards the gate to the clearing, I see that the sky is a gradient of blue to white to yellow to orange, like the reverse of a flame.

It's cold today. I'm bundled in coat and scarf and hat and gloves. It's muddy too, and my feet slip and sink into ground as I walk. But I have a hard time leaving. This is such a special moment, caught between night and day. As I walk outside of the clearing, I turn and look back. I will continue to come here and keep this blog after the class ends. I feel like I have only begun to know this place.