Aesthetics vs. Inquiry

I miss the smell of grass in the spring. Then again, I miss the smell of grass in general. Grass conjures up so many memories: of mowing the front and back yards beneath the St. Louis summer sun in High School, listening to The Who and dreaming about asking out the girl I liked; of wrestling with the guys after school in Seventh grade in Brian’s front yard; of sitting on top of the grass hill at the park after the Fourth of July and watching the fireworks show. I don’t often pause to appreciate grass. But today, I did pushups in a large field of graves and felt the soft dirt form to my hands. Moving up and down in rapid breath, I smelled the crispy leaves.

Through my time in this Nature Writing course, I have become aware of a disconnect between the aestheticization of nature and the inquiry into nature, a discrepancy between appearances and depths. Typically, I would remain in the former category, for my traditional view on the natural world has been entirely sensory: listening to the calm chirps of the robins, feeling the gentle touch of the wind, seeing the vibrations of the willows. In fact, I love remaining in the former category, for I find such marvel in the patterns I see—the stream-like formation of the veins splaying through a leaf, the near-perfect geometry of a fallen pine cone. As I focus on these patterns in their aesthetic manifestations, I am calmed, and my worries drift. Investigation into can certainly increase the marvel, but I do not believe it is necessary for appreciation. All depends on how one chooses to relate to nature. 

But now I feel immense pressure to “go deeper,” to spend time researching, that I may be a more informed nature writer. In fact, I feel like a bad person for not veering toward doing that, as if my view on the natural world is somehow incorrect. I have become so much more neurotic about writing, about “entering the flow.” Pre-Chatham, while doing my best to be a Kerouacian vagabond, I would have had no trouble (or displeasure) sitting here on this grass full of leaves and writing about it. Maybe it would have been something like:

The cool wind blows and massages my neck, ruffling my hair and sending the fallen brown leaves twirling in unpredictable motion. Gray clouds migrate rapidly, dropping the first drops of the late afternoon. A beautiful woman jogs by, her Nike soles clomping against the gravel path. Breathing deeply, I am unseen; transparent, I enter into the limitless moment.

Now, I can barely write that, for a wholly new voice has entered my mind. The voice says: “What do you know about leaves? What kind of leaves are they? Do you even know why grass grows? Clouds don’t migrate, you dumbass! And stop checking out every woman you see and just focus on your damn craft.” 

I’ve never been one to understand nature or learn a vocabulary of categories by which we classify it. At Yosemite, I did not stop to read the signs explaining how Half Dome came to be. Rather, I sat on the grass and stared at it, breathing deeply and trying not to blink. 

Maybe I’m lazy, unwilling to learn new things that may amaze me. I am not sure. I am just so amazed by aesthetics, by the way things unfold and deepen the more we focus on them. The Fleet Foxes sing, “If I know only one thing, it’s that everything that I see of the world outside is so inconceivable often I barely can speak.” To be moved into wordlessness, into pure perception. That is how I enjoy nature. That is how I will always enjoy nature. But I now recognize how scientific facts can deepen a perception of something natural. Neither category excludes the other. The grass will always smell delicious. 

Change Occurring

I am surrounded by robins.

The birds are playing today. Their chirping is incessant, diverse in pitch. They dart after one another at rapid speeds down over the pond. The wind blows softly, rippling the green-brown water, water that has been concealed by ice for many months now.

Change fascinates me. Some of us love it, some of us hate it. But what fascinates me, apart from its inevitability, is its dependence upon memory. We perceive only instants, and our recollection of previous instants informs us that this moment is different, that change has occurred. I remember total silence last time I came to the cemetery. Now, the robins' noise is perpetual, and I deduce that weather patterns account for the change. I search for reasons for this instant being different than the instants of my memory.

I suppose change is inseparable from time. Over time, the dead brown spindles of the weeping willow before me will fall, and the limbs will sprout green life once again. The beige grass below me will not remain beige. Change and time occur and progress, regardless of our intentions. I could have received the most devastating news of my life this morning, but in coming here, I still would have heard the birds in their play. They do not seem concerned that we just experienced a brutal winter. They just seem happy they are here.

There's never enough time. Well, maybe I should rephrase. For some things, some experiences, there is never enough time. Big projects. Moments spent with loved ones. Yet for other experiences, time cannot move fast enough. I could not wait for winter to end. Now it is coming to a close, and still I feel great pressure. For Graduate school is coming to a close, and never again will I be able to devote two years so wholeheartedly to a project, surrounded by energetic, smiling people doing the same thing. Life is getting in the way.

But I am in a place where I believe this to be a good thing. Being occupied with various tasks allows for space. The further I dive into my novel, the less connected I feel with people. Other tasks help. This walk helps. Deep breaths help. The robins help.

We aren't here to do just one thing. We are capable of so much.

I've Got Something to Say... But it's all Vanity

Golly was it nice to read David Gessner’s essay “Sick of Nature.” He said so much of what I have been thinking and feeling lately, and he said it in human, conversational language. My patience with lofty, elevated language is running thin. Consider this a warning that a rant is to come. 

                I’m so goddamn sick of this snow. If it doesn’t stop I’m going to destroy something. Like take a bat to it. 

                Annoyance and anger carry me into the graveyard. I’ve felt so stifled lately. My go-to simile is that I feel as if two large hairy hands are gripping my brain and slowly adding pressure. I don’t give a shit about the writing today. I lack the energy to transform visions of the same shit into something supposedly meaningful.

Two deer are near the entrance. I don’t see innocent beauty. I see two dumb animals about a hundred feet from being pummeled by a speeding vehicle. I run toward them, and they trot away. 

Deeper in now, I arrive into my space of openness. I stand still, as I have done. At least the sky is blue and the sun is shining. I like the sun. But I like it because of what it does for me, how it warms my skin. I, like Gessner, am a great narcissist. And my approach to nature writing thus far has only increased my narcissism. When I look at the cemetery, at the snow, I think—how can I relate this to me? What can I learn from this sycamore, these footprints? How does this scene inform the struggles I face?

I hate this mentality. Goddamn does it reduce the world. The world, this graveyard, doesn’t give a shit about the fact that I feel stifled and am anxious about graduating and am barely finding time to work on my novel amidst all my other classwork, even if the novel is the main reason I’m in this program. No, the world just is. The tree says nothing about my frustration. It’s just a tree.

Ken Kesey was a smart dude. He said, “We’re always looking for, never looking at.”

These thoughts in mind, the world opens. The moment shines with clarity, and the snow glitters. My dumb narcissistic thoughts have moved temporarily aside. 

This thinking, this relating, is new to my life. Before my MFA experience, I did not see something amazing and think of what it meant for me. I just saw it. The peaks and waterfalls of Yosemite, the lakes of Glacier, the mountains of Olympic—I just saw them, and goddamn did I marvel at them. When my friends and I passed around a flask in a cave of boulders at Joshua Tree, near a precipice overlooking a grand desert expanse of craggy Seussian trees, I didn’t try to condense it into a distinct quantifiable phase or moment. It just happened, and I loved it. Now, my friends and I look back with admiration, simply because it occurred.

The more I try to relate the nature I see to this particular point in my life, the more I get trapped in my own head.  We can only learn of an experience’s true significance over time. We can never predict all that will result from an event’s transpiring. The more we try to understand it immediately, the more we suffer at the realization we cannot. 

 I want to go back. Back to that time where I wasn’t trying to form everything into something it’s not. Cause that feels like lying, and it hurts my brain to do it. 

I’m not blaming anyone or anything. It’s the way I’ve been approaching writing. Only I can control that. And I’m changing it. Too concerned I’ve become with expectations of teachers and journals and employers and yadee yadda. I have not been listening to the voice inside my head. I’ve been trying to form it into something it’s not. 

The birds are chirping. This sounds nice to me. I’ll leave it at that.