“The modern dogma is comfort at any cost.” To some, a Saturday morning is not exactly the “ideal time” to wake up to explore the natural world. Also, when waking up at the very splinter of sunlight for me is unheard of, even more so was my urge to collect my weekly blog report. This entry is dedicated to my off-kilter mental alarm, autumn–gently writing herself into nature, and the serenity that is an early morning hike.
One would expect that dragging themselves out of bed before 8 a.m. on a Saturday may be asking the world (and then some) from a college student. A Saturday morning is supposed to be a late awakening, sluggish breakfast of guilt inducing tacos and many laughs of friends about their weekly escapades. But this time, Saturday morning was different; I woke up…early…and wanted to walk.
Once my foot was out the door, the calmness was palpable. The air seemed still, the birds weren’t out just yet, and it was just quiet. As I strolled to Blunn Creek, felt the cool fall air breezing through. When I finally made it to the strange entry trail onto the path, I noticed another slight change, enough to break the threshold of familiarity, like a friend who get’s a hardly noticeable haircut. Something was different. After prancing through, it had finally clicked, the parched summer land, had actually come back to life, for one last hoo-ra before the winter blesses us. All of the foliage seemed lush, and vibrant. The vivacious forest seemed harmonious with the early morning. It may be because I had crammed about three hours of Avatar: the Last Airbender that pervious night, but I felt liveliness in the air.
When I found my way to my usual spot, I found a bunch of mud and wet ground so, I decided to sniff out a new spot. I found a tiny creek that had such a quaint sound of moving water that magnetized my butt to the ground. As I watched the water I began to see more and more leaves dancing their way down streams. The beautiful ballet I saw unfolding really got my mind racing about why the leaves were in such dense numbers flowing down stream. It was this moment that I had realized we had entered in the most gorgeous season, autumn. On the calendar I had known in advance that fall was on her way, but to actually see it, to feel it, to hear it is a much different performance all around.
My partially observant eyes had wandered around the creek, seeing a small trickle of life take center stage in the heart of this small preserve. At the other edge of the bank, or I suppose do to the small distance, the other side of the stream, I saw nature throw a puzzle at me. A tree had fallen, which isn’t out of the ordinary, but what it had landed on was more shocking. This fallen tree and landed on a sapling tree which deformed it in a way I have only heard about in stories.
By the end of the trip, I began to hear what I presumed was a middle school science class observing the little creek. I had decided that my silence was unfortunately over. As the curtain fell on this meditative walk, I began to notice a lot more of the small intricate designs left by many years of preservation, and many more of mother nature.
