During the month of March, I spent most of my time outdoors. However, the highlight of the month would be during Spring Break, where I spent the week camping off of the Guadalupe River. It was the time where only small scraps and pieces of winter remained. Most of the days were grey and breezy. Only once or twice did the sun come out and give us a taste of the spring to come. Nonetheless, it was still an adventure.
Spending a couple of nights on a sleeping bag outside on the ground began to season me, I had grown to enjoy and cherish it so much that it had me wondering if would be able to readjust to sleeping on a mattress under a roof back home.
I embraced and enjoyed the feeling of calling the natural world home for a while. There were no walls, no ceiling, nothing to confine me. I spent my nights staring into the starry endless sky, and feeling the openness that surrounded me, yet didn’t encroach on me. It invited me to be in its presence, so I took it all in.
It caused me to wonder; what causes a man to confine himself? Are there not enough comforts to satisfy within the natural world? People spend so much time taking away their freedoms as they work hard to become slaves to society, yet freedom takes no effort as long as there is a burning desire to seek it out. I feel like our days our too short and pass too quickly for them to be spent shackled by the civilized lifestyle. Us humans have had the key all along: it is the wilderness that surrounds us.
When I visited the city downtown over the month of March, I realized that the noise goes on and on. The irritation never stops. I cannot hear myself think. I cannot perceive any beauty. There is no balance in the man-made world. All the concrete tips the scale to one side, and on the other side there is only emptiness.
However, when I spent my time camping, I found the perfect balance among nature. It was here where I could actually stop and breathe; breathe in the freshness and out the poisons. It was here where I could think, I could hear, I could see.
But as all things do, my adventure out camping came to an end. It was nice to be able to experience the start of the transition from winter to spring. It was also a nostalgic experience, as being out there would constantly remind me of life out in South America, I felt connected and integrated with nature again, just like when I used to live there.
“The problem, then, is how to bring about a striving for harmony with land among a people many of whom have forgotten there is any such thing as land, among whom education and culture have become almost synonymous with landlessness.” –Aldo Leopold
