Nature; what life revolves around. People might not recognize the significance of nature within their daily lives until a hurricane hits the coast and wipes out their home, or a wildfire leaves a once radiant and lush forest in fields of black smoldering stumps. Nature might not play a devastating role everyday, but it can make a person decide if they will need an umbrella, a winter jacket, or sunglasses on any particular day.
The lives of people in the north woods, like that of my own, are controlled by nature. During the winter it might be too cold to leave my house, but as I sit inside, and look out over the grounds where the trees are piled so heavily with snow they are struggling just to stand and hold their bows up, a kind of peacefulness settles around me. The sky might be covered in a blanket of gray clouds, and the earth might be freezing, but the scene is beautiful. As the large, cotton-like snowflakes fall from the sky and the peacefulness of Mother Nature rests upon the sheets of white canvas that is covering the earth, nature makes a person feel worthy and privileged to be living with such a precious thing.
There are moments in my life, and most likely in that of others, in which nothing in this world matters or feels right. But as I take a walk even down my back woods road or through the paths in the woods carved and wrought out by their many travelers, be that human or animal, I find the littlest things that cheer me up. Maybe it’s a little otter swimming on my shore line as I sit on a path watching it play in the water, or perhaps a blue heron, looking so noble in its environment, that I might just have a staring contest with it. Sometimes it is just a butterfly flying around my head, landing on my arm and I notice all the phenomenal colors that are brought to life on just one of its wings, and then are duplicated in the exact way on the other. A person, such as myself, begins to respect and cherish life, enjoy the unexpected, and have a little something that makes them realize all the little importance’s in their own life.
My brother once said to me like he had done something wrong, “Don’t call me a loser or anything, but on winter days when it’s snowing, I like sitting in the loft and staring out the window; it’s peaceful.” I stared at him and said that he wasn’t a loser and that people should feel different things from nature, for me it’s thunderstorms. I will go into our screened-in-porch and watch the rain pouring down around me, hear the wind whipping and the thunder booming, and it gives me a thrill and a rush of adrenaline through my body. I feel sorry for the people that try and shut out nature, not look at the little things around them and ignore its many different moods.
People might say that they don’t care about nature possibly because they are nervous about the different ways heartless people will humiliate them. They say they don’t care about the different environmental problems and are not affected during the many exotic moods nature throws out at them. However do they not listen to the weather station? Have they never awakened to the sun and felt its warmth as the sky turns brilliant shades of orange, red, and yellow? What if these things weren’t there in life? Life as people know it would not exist; everything that people take for granted would appear desirable. People would never be able to observe that little otter splashing on the shore or experience the ocean tide swirling around ones feet. What type of stories would people be able to tell? Campfire stories that my Dad used to tell me would be nonexistent, and the many summers I have spent outside down by the lake would not have taken place.
In reality people are all affected and have had to interact with nature. Whether it is because of the weather or sunburn, people have learned to live and work with the different changing stages of nature. Live, learn, and love everyday and be thankful for all of the things nature has allowed people to be a part of.