I have lived in Upstate New York all of my life, and the picture I chose is one that I took in I believe the summer of 2015 in my hometown. There’s a small portion of landscape seen under the sunset, and unfortunately a lot of the pictures that I took from that period of my life have been lost, but this picture holds a lot of personal memories and values for me. I remember we were driving up the large hill that is near my house to see the most amazing sunset I have ever seen, and made my grandfather pull over so I could take pictures of it. I stood outside taking pictures of the magnificent view over the barren corn fields until it got dark and I don’t think I could ever forget how breathtaking it was to experience this sunset in real time.
Living in rural upstate New York, I was surrounded by many farms and Amish homes, so where I lived wasn’t very populous or busy. All us neighborhood kids that lined the street had free rein of the environment around us and we took advantage of it nearly everyday. I grew up being outside the majority of the time that I wasn’t in school, exploring the woods and streams behind my house in the nearly 4 acres of land my family possessed, playing man-hunt in the summer nights with all of my neighbor friends, and wandering through the rolling hills of corn fields that surrounded my home. I also remember that as a younger child I never wore shoes anywhere in my small part of town. I could say so much more about the emotions and memories this picture draws from me, but now that I haven’t lived there since summer 2016, I can say that it makes me feel, more than anything, nostalgic and guilty that I took nature for granted, rather than being more appreciative of every aspect of it.
There was always an appreciation of what nature provided in my community, whether it be from hunting, fishing, or growing our own produce in the large gardens I had in my backyard to the larger fields of produce being grown by local farmers. It was a much simpler time when nature was very much an integral part of my community, however I never recall there being a stressed importance on nature other than the fact that most of the town hunted and fished in it. I don’t believe that this place would function on the basis of Terry Tempest Williams’s bedrock of democracy. I don’t necessarily believe as though my community has the sense of passion and deep connection, more so than just an appreciation. It is not to be diminished that there is appreciation present, but as Barbara Kingsolver and Terry Tempest Williams both allude to, there is no sense of protection of nature. Referring to land, Williams states that, “…they will not remain ecologically intact without our vigilance, without our willingness to protect what is wild.” (Williams 6). My community lacks the value of protecting and preserving nature to its highest potential to be able to continue to use it as a resource, but instead only views it as a resource and nothing more.
I do agree very much with Kingsolver’s view on needing wildness. Without having some sort of wildness in one’s life, it would be hard to have a sense of what the world and nature has to offer them. When Kingsolver talks about her husband showing kids from cities about fruits and vegetables coming from the ground, it shocked me that they had not a fraction of a clue about what nature has to offer. “I wonder what it will mean for people to forget that food, like rain, is not a product but a process.” (Kingsolver 1). This quote gives me great emotion due to the fact that I was lucky enough to grow up being in tune with nature to some extent rather than being completely out of touch with it. I believe it is completely possible for city-dwellers to have this connection with nature, if they choose to seek it out. When we live in a society in which all of our basic needs are essentially presented to us, there is no direct need for those in cities to go into nature unless it’s by choice. To me, some form of connection with nature, whether it be small or large, is significant in raising awareness of ecological needs and delving into this bedrock of democracy in order to protect the world around us more efficiently.
Annotated Sources:
Kingsolver, Barbara. “Knowing Our Place.” Small Wonder. HarperCollins Publishers, 2002. Kingsolver details her experiences with encountering nature in order to describe how crucial it is to have a connection to nature and wildness. In her writings, she discusses what it is like to live surrounded by nature and the ways in which she sees the value in tapping into this connection. Kingsolver examines nature as it impacts her writings, her daily living, and the way in which she views the world by utilizing aspects of the wilderness.
Williams, Terry Tempest. “Home Work.” Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert. Vintage Books, 2002. Terry Tempest Williams details the struggles between citizens of Southern Utah and the government involvement regarding the protection of nature. Williams writes about the usage of wilderness for commercial development rather than allowing it to be the unregulated wilderness it. Williams discusses the failures of the government to protect the land of her hometown while also examining her personal link to the deserts of Utah.
Hi Madi,
When I was reading about what you used to do when you were a child it reminded me of my own childhood. I do not live on a lot of land, but I do live in a private neighborhood and all the kids I’m my neighborhood would always be wandering around outside and spent most of our days outside. There are some woods behind my house and we would walk through them and it would always be fun and adventurous. I loved to find new things not matter what it was like for example there were little tree frogs that we would always see on our walks and I love would just look at them. This is not always the case, but I believe that if you grow up exploring the world and spending time outside you are more likely to appreciate nature instead of taking it for granted. Like you mentioned Kingsolver explains that you need to experience nature once in a while. The more society develops the more it becomes separated with nature, but in reality, we should be interacting with nature constantly. You made a good point when you said that we need to experience nature to understand the world around us. Nature is the world, and everything is man-made and has been created by humans along the way. One statement that Kingsolver made that stood out to me was “What we lose in our great human exodus from the land is a rooted sense, as deep and intangible as religious faith, of why we need to hold on to the wild and beautiful places that once surrounded us” (Kingsolver). She is saying that humans do have a relationship with nature, but it has been taken away from us based on the way we choose to live. Some people who live in cities never experience any nature so how are they ever supposed to get a sense of what it is like.
Hi Madi,
I really connected your writing to that of bell hooks. In her essay, she talks all about having the connection to earth through farming. You were lucky to see what nature really can do as a child. You got to taste the wonder of nature and the earth. When Kingslover talks about how her husband showed children the carrots that grew from the ground and they were shocked, that is how most city kids grow up. They are detached and unaware of what wonders the earth can produce. We lived in the desert for the majority of the time our kids were growing up. During those years we made it a point to leave the desert’s brutal summer for more mild climates. Often times those brought us to places like national parks. Zion, was a personal favorite of mine, Glacier National Park, where it’s green and cool and the mountains are full of natural sounds and animals. Our children were introduced to nature through ranger and campfire programs, but then we went back home to live our suburban life in the desert sand. I think you were lucky to have had the experience to know what beauty nature can give back.
I completely related to your post talking about your childhood as mine was very familiar. My knack for not wearing shoes was so common that my mom kept them in the car in case I needed to go into a store.
We also agree that when it comes to our communities, they do more of the appreciating part rather than the activism. I wonder why this is that these small communities in this part of the country that use nature as a resource have reached some sort of contentment? This had me questioning so I did a little bit of research to see if I could find a reason for this sense of complacency. There isn’t much to find. An article about deforestation in upstate New York despite population stagnation, articles about the poor water quality of the Great Lakes. What I did find was a 1994 article about the lack of participation by young people in politics.
Most of the people in our communities who would be making these decisions if something were to happen would be Gen X. This article was very enlightening as to why Gen X (the article just names them “the youth”) is so lacking when it comes to political activism and this could be taken as what also allows them to be complacent as their communities slowly erode away.
I will leave links to both the articles in a comment below this one just to make sure it posts correctly.
https://academic.oup.com/njaf/article/23/4/280/4779989
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ejsp.2420240202