I rose with the sun, today. This week it is not the still of the forest that greets me, but the stillness of the Green at an early hour. The weather feels as if it is nature’s cool sigh of relief – fall has finally arrived. Today I am breaking the rules. I am going to write to you about the People’s Climate March.

Yesterday, I arrived in New York City at 11 am, and the air was buzzing with excitement. On every corner, sign-toting pedestrians were making their way to Central Park West, eager to begin the long trek to 11th and 38th. Enthralled by the history about to be made, my feet hit the 86th street pavement with an indescribable determination. I was ready. In what was described by my friends as “typical Kira fashion,” the sign that I’d made on the bus said, simply, “No.” And so, we began our walk.

We joined the march on 85th street, ducking into the masses who had not yet begun to walk. Shortly after, I ran thirteen blocks towards the front, where I was reunited with friends from Michigan, Ohio, and Maine, who had travelled for hours to be a part of this massive, historical movement. Shortly after, the march began.

As we walked, I noticed something truly incredible: babies. Babies everywhere. Children, anywhere from a few months to ten years old, were marching, holding signs, making noise. Many of these children had a fierceness in their eyes that I have never seen before – these children know. There was a girl standing on a police barrier, held steady by her father, with a kind of determination I’ve never seen in someone so young. The sign she held took my breath away.

LOOK MOM

NO FUTURE

            She couldn’t have been more than ten years old and, while I am sure that her parents are the ones responsible for the incredibly compelling statement on that poster, this child knew what she was doing.

This is the future of our country, this is the future of our world. These are some seriously pissed off children who walked two long, crowded miles, to demand a sustainable future. This was 400,000 children, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, mothers and inhabitants of the planet Earth, demanding change. Moreover, these people came in peace. When you reflect on the People’s Climate March, the pictures you see and the articles you read will not convey to you a fight that broke out, police brutality, or even arguments amongst the crowd. What you will see is the streets of Manhattan, brimming with brightly-colored, banner-carrying human beings who want nothing more than for their children to grow up feeling safe.

I have seen a monarch butterfly. I have seen a bald eagle. Both of these things were in the wild. I am only eighteen years old, and I am worried about the children I will have in the future. I am worried about children now. We are on the precipice of a massive ecological disaster. This year is a turning point. 400,000 people took to the streets of New York to do everything in their power to ensure that something, anything, is changed. Because something needs to change, and the “someone else will do it” mentality just won’t cut it anymore.

White Clay is much more quiet today.  The sky is overcast, the temperature is hot, and the humidity is oppressive.  The insistent buzz of insects continues in the background, but even this sound seems numbed and muted.  The water is moving slower than I remember and it looks turbid, unclean.  The surroundings add to my weariness as the thick air inhibits my breath.  My body sweats and complains.  It is not the kind of day I would usually choose to go and explore in the wilderness.

Walking to my usual location, I view the woods with the more critical eye of one not entirely thrilled about the task at hand.  I notice bits of plastic on the ground and I identify with the plants that look somewhat wilted and unhappy.  I spot an empty prescription bottle under some brush and a crumpled up PBR can alongside my path.  My pessimism increases.

I begin to think about all the negative impacts the nearby university is probably having on this creek.  So many parking lots, roads, cars being driven, and chemicals being used so close to this fragile environment.  I remember last Saturday during a massive thunderstorm when the water runoff couldn’t drain fast enough and inches of water piled up in the parking lots and roadways, desperately trying to find a drainage outlet in the expanse of impermeable concrete and macadam.  I think about our beloved “green” and the signs that so often tell students to enjoy the landscape but to not touch the “newly treated” grass.  I think about all the synthetic and unnatural toxins that run off from our university and into Whiteclay creek, a beautiful, but far from pristine ecosystem.  Although surely it is the state of the weather and the permeating humidity triggering my negative thoughts, I can’t help but think of the watershed in Delaware as whole, running all the way down to the Chesapeake Bay, a seriously threatened estuary which people and wildlife alike rely upon for numerous natural resources.  I can only imagine the ways in which we are poisoning the water and all of the living things that depend on the land, ourselves included.

I try to focus on the purpose of my journey into the woods as I near my chosen spot, but all I can see are the flaws in the environment around me.  As I march forward, a tiny brown toad jumps out of my way.  I stoop down to look at him and I admire his bumpy skin and his specialized body.  He is at home here in the tall and damp grass, breathing through his porous skin and using his powerful hind legs to leap from danger.  He was made to thrive in his environment, to be a part of a specific food chain where the big eat the small and the fittest survive.  But under the influence of human interference, this creature is so vulnerable.  Toxins, a change in pH, or lack of native insect prey could easily kill this toad, eliminating him and the key role he plays in the web of the ecosystem.  Yet here he is on this miserable day, existing without care and only aware of his instincts and the way of life he knows.  I encounter two more of the same species of toad on the way to my spot.

As I sit down among the leaves and begin to write, I start to notice the sounds that I can hear on this quieter day.  I hear more individual bird calls, at one point a steady rhythm which could be a woodpecker.  I focus on listening and looking up when I am suddenly surprised by a loud huff which breaks the stillness.  I look down to see a young buck, staring straight at me, about 20 yards away in the clearing below.  It seems we have both surprised each other.  He huffs at me two more times and then lifts his white tail and dashes away in great, bounding leaps.  I’m left startled by the encounter but feeling truly lucky to have seen this solitary deer, to have this brief acknowledgement of each other’s existence.  I am back in love with this place again.  What could be a better way to wind up my Thursday than to examine some toads and run into a deer in the woods?  I feel elated, like there’s so much more beyond my man-made reality.  Something raw and natural and purely beautiful occurs here in the woods.  This wildlife exists based on it’s own rules, it’s own logical and orderly way of life.  The instinctual drives of the toads and the deer are so simple, yet they all connect to a much larger picture of an incomprehensibly complex ecosystem full of life.  Thinking about the implications of nature and its systems makes you appreciative of something much more important than yourself.  Perhaps if more people could experience feelings like this, grow up with nature, feel it’s power and wonder, we would be making the effort to protect such habitats.  Perhaps all of us would be taking the steps to ensure that we don’t lose our ability to enjoy nature through its destruction and disappearance.  It’s much harder to take the natural world for granted when you have spent time in it and have felt the accompanying awe.

One of the things I missed most about home when I first came to Delaware was trail running. Growing up in a town that was mostly woods with a spattering of farmland I spent a lot of time outside, doing my favorite thing. Running. When I came down to UD three years ago as a freshman I was suddenly transplanted to a town where it seemed the only place to run was on the asphalt through the busy town. I hated it.

At some point sophomore year my friends and woke up and realized that White Clay was five minutes from where we were living. Since that epic realization I’ve spent hours in those woods, enjoying a post-work swim in the creek with my roommates during the hottest days of summer, or just going for a run.
Having these trails accessible changed a lot for me. I was no longer getting shin splints since I was running mostly on soft trails, rather than the sidewalks and hard pavement of the town. Running in the UD area had gotten very boring for me and resulted in shorter runs, but trail running is hardly ever boring and my mile count started going up again. However, most of all, running in the woods really just made me feel at home. It was familiar and relaxing.

There is one stretch of trail in particular that is similar to one of the areas I ran in at home. This was the area I chose to make my own for the semester.
I’ve always been attracted to water, especially areas where the water is quiet and calm. As I sat down on the bank of the creek one of the first things I noticed was the relative silence. Aside from the sound of insects, which sounded like cicadas, it was extremely quiet. The water was moving quickly, but with no obstacles or falls in vicinity it moved silently. The water was very shallow, but moving faster than I expected for such a low water level. Across the water from me was a very large tree that had fallen over the creek. Either park rangers had cut a portion of the trunk after it fell, or a large part had rotted off. Closer to me, I noticed that there was a lot of insect activity on the water that was shaded by the trees next to me. Out in the sunny water there seemed to be hardly any bugs.

I was sitting up on a bank, maybe three feet above where the water was. It was a very steep drop, almost totally vertical from my spot to the water. There was huge tree root running parallel to the mini-cliff, but I couldn’t tell which of the many trees it was coming from. Along this edge, there was a skinny tree right in front of me, growing up from the steep drop. Its roots were exposed and anchoring the tree into the side of this drop off. From where the trunk started, to about two feet up the tree there was a big split in the bark. It looked like there was a triangle section where there was no rough bark, but it seemed natural. It didn’t look like something had intentionally damaged the tree. The tree had small, oval shaped leaves. Some of which at the bottom of the tree had started turn yellow. Many of the leaves, both green and yellow had missing pieces where bugs had been eating.

To my left, there was an even skinnier tree that was completely slanted, with the upper branches leaning on the first tree. This tree was very smooth looking, almost like it had no bark. This tree had fewer leaves and more of them were yellow, but they were the same size and shape as the first.

One of the first things I noticed when I sat down in this spot was a chute like plant with bright red berries at its top. I have never seen a plant like this, it was almost like a flower coming up from the ground with a thick stem, but instead of a blossom there was a cluster of berries at the top of the plant.
To my right there was a very large maple tree, all of its leaves were still green, which was striking next to the others which had already begun to change. This large tree had dropped many seeds and all around me on the ground were tiny saplings starting to grow. On the ground, there were also small patches of tall, thick, blades of grass. One thing that stood out to me was a spider web, built in-between two of these pieces of grass. The web looked even more delicate than others because it was built on these pieces of grass rather than something sturdier.

Though I didn’t see any spiders around the web, I did see a few of what seemed to be very small dragon flies. I was also greeted by an inch worm, different looking that the light green ones I was used to seeing and playing with as a kid in Connecticut. Rather than the common light green color, yhis one was black with striking stripes of bright yellow on its sides.

Moments after I sat down in a dry patch of grass under a tree, the rain picked up again. At first it was only a few drops here and there. Then all of a sudden, the sky opened up. My notebook quickly became drenched despite my efforts. Perfect, now if only there was—boom. The crackling noise of thunder was much louder in the woods. From a safe distance, I could see the banks of the stream were overflowing slightly from the recent rain. Erosion on the sides of the stream was fairly obvious. Every tree was dripping wet and interestingly enough, I was the only creature dumb enough to be out in this storm. The downpour, only broken up by the roar of thunder, blocked out all other sounds. I didn’t have to wait long for the best part of the show. Only a few minutes after the thunder began, lightning lit up the sky. When I wasn’t paying attention to the beautiful flashes of light in the sky, I began to look around. I noticed that the spot I had chosen was fairly untouched by humans. There was no water bottles, no trash, nor any letters carved into the bark surrounding me. Before I knew it, I was lost in my thoughts about how I had found this spot the first time.

My sophomore year of high school I had joined the cross country team. During one of the first weeks of summer practice, I tried to impress a few of the girls in my small group. While we were out on the run, I suggested that we go see a pretty pond that I had been to before. Unfortunately, we took a wrong turn and got ourselves lost. When we established that we were sufficiently lost, we took a break to stretch in a small clearing next to a stream. It was beautiful enough to became one of the spots we would run to during practice. That’s why I was here now.

In the spring of my second year running, I began to feel weak and tired all of the time. I couldn’t run as far anymore or as hard. It was almost as if my body was giving up on me. Each practice became harder and harder. It was to the point where I was going to bed immediately when I got home from school. My parents took me to the doctor for some blood tests and scans. All I wanted was an answer, but no test seemed to have a clue about what was wrong. After about a month, they finally realized that my thyroid stimulating hormones (TSH) levels were off. As Professor Jenkins mentioned in his book, the thyroid is extremely important for regulating metabolism and maintaining homeostasis in the body. So it was imperative to do an ultrasound. The doctors discovered a nodule. Cancer. They said not to worry, but that they would have to do a few more tests next week. I ran to my favorite spot by the river and I broke down in tears. A slight overreaction, but I don’t know how I was not supposed to worry. I was only seventeen years old.

I was asked a million different questions about what I had done in my lifetime. I’d done virtually nothing besides school. I held a job at the YMCA, but I never thought that hanging around a pool would cause cancer. Thankfully, I was able to rest easy, because after a radioactive iodine test, they determined that my nodule was benign. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, which is quite rare for a seventeen-year-old male. Nevertheless, after I got used to the medication, it would be manageable. I had googled what might have caused my nodule to form only to find that nearly every chemical known to man puts me at risk for cancer. Plastics, light bulbs, paints, pool chemicals, plant fertilizers, etc. The better question became what didn’t cause cancer? I gave up. There was no way to minimize exposure to chemicals. At least not as a seventeen-year-old. Where was I going to go? Once my life returned to normal besides taking a pill once a day, I essentially forgot about how horrible chemicals can be.

Two weeks ago, I was diagnosed with another nodule. This one is nearly double the size of the last one. While the doctor said I shouldn’t worry, there was no way that was possible. I was more pissed off than anything especially after reading Professor Jenkins’ book. What if I had minimized my exposure to chemicals? Would I be better off? The worst part is I don’t even know where to start. I don’t know why we are not doing more to make people aware of the hazards that are out there. There are so many clubs, charities, and awareness programs set up for nearly every disease. For example, look at the ice-bucket challenge and how much money it has raised for ALS. There’s now plenty of awareness, but most of the research is going to go towards finding a cure. Yet we don’t even know what causes this disease or similar debilitating diseases. If we don’t know what causes it, there is very little chance that we’re going to cure the disease. On the flip side, if we could prevent the disease in the first place, there would not be a need to cure it.

I asked my doctor what caused these nodules. He shrugged and shook his head. He has no idea, but he is going to be the one taking care of me. No one has ever talked to me about the dangerous chemicals that potentially caused my nodules. No one ever mentioned the dangerous chemicals in popcorn bags, almost every processed food, plastic water bottles, my pajamas, my toys, my books, etc. In the U.S., more emphasis needs to be placed here. It’s already been done in Europe through REACH. The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 is way outdated. We as citizens are not protected against chemicals that are made here on our land and even in some of our backyards. Thus there is no way that we are protected against chemicals that we import from places like China. The problem becomes how do we convince people that the chemicals that they use everyday are harmful?

I don’t think this should be as difficult as it sounds. Professor Jenkins’ book stated that one in three women will be affected by cancer. Among men, the number is one in two. Thus we all know someone who has been affected by these horrible chemicals.Companies lobby millions of dollars to keep the links between diseases and their products to a minimum. They say not enough research has been done. To that, I respond just look around. Look at every disease that has gone up in incidence ever since the increase in chemical use sixty years ago. I’ve been lucky for the time being. No malignant cancer for now, pending the test results of the biopsy. Still, there are so many people who have not been as lucky as myself. If you had a chance to lower your own or you child’s incidence of cancer, autism, or some other disease, wouldn’t you at least try?

Newark Reservoir, the sign read as my headlights splashed light on it for a split second.

I pulled into a parking lot with a large hill looming overhead and a manmade ditch, vacant of water and neatly lined with stones, separating the pavement from the bottom of the hill.

Huh. Even in the dark this doesn’t look much like a reservoir – back home I’d expect to see an enormous body of water surrounded on all sides by acres and acres of vibrantly lit trees, one on top of the other as they came together to create beautiful rolling hills.
Then again, Newark, Delaware is nothing like the rolling hills of New England. That’s not to say it isn’t beautiful, just a bit more developed and a lot more flat; different from what I was used to. But this large hill that towered ahead made it feel more like home.
Keeping that in mind, I swallowed any lingering fears about exploring an unknown place at night and began ascending the winding path that appeared to loop around the hill.

This isn’t so bad, I thought, as I took a seat on the grass near a wooded area to enjoy the night. The wet grass, I realized a minute too late, after my shorts had already been soaked through.
Crickets chirping, frogs croaking, the bright moon revealing its true beauty between blue clouds. It’s too easy to get lost in the sounds of nature at night. Then a loud huffing noise nearby interrupted my trance, causing me to jump up and muffle a scream. All the worst thoughts came to mind as I quickly tried to determine the culprit. Panic ensued.

In Connecticut I’ve seen my fair share of bears and coyotes. I’ve seen foxes and bobcats up close. And even, gulp, heard of mountain lion sightings from neighbors and grandparents. Although, funny thing is even with all of the recent sightings of mountain lions and two incidences of a mountain lion being killed by a car, the DEP still claims that these big cats are extinct in the area. But that’s a whole different story. For the time being, I could eliminate almost all of these potential threats as the creator of the noise. I’d never heard of these animals in Newark with the exception of foxes, and it had sounded more like a gentle noise that a hooved animal might make.

A sigh of relief escaped as I watched a deer leap over the ditch below me. I could make out a few figures moving to my left, which I hoped were deer too.

To be sure, I shined my flashlight at them and saw several sets of green eyes staring right back at me and could just barely trace the outline of their heads. Definitely deer, although it worries me that one set of eyes is much lower than the others. Deer can be very aggressive when it comes to protecting their young, so I’ve heard.

It is peaceful, yet terrifying out here at night. I wondered how two such contrasting emotions could be running through my mind at once.

As I stood up and continued on the path – which happened to wind towards the deer – I expected them to sprint away, but they didn’t. These deer were fearless it seemed.
I could no longer see the parking lot through which I had entered and the night appeared to be growing darker. How were these deer so bold, yet I, the human, could feel goose bumps forming on my arms?
Maybe it is because we humans tend to fear the unknown.

As I stood there alone in the night, on a path next to the woods, I contemplated the unknown. I don’t know what lies ahead of me, or in the woods now to my right. But I also don’t know what’s hidden in the water bottles I drink out of or half of the food I eat.
Finally, I decided I could no longer stand all these thoughts of the unknown and the bugs that had been attacking me for the past half hour, and decided to turn back.

I strode more confidently back down a path that I was now familiar with, already having decided to go on a run here to scope this place out during the day once my knee healed.
After returning home, I realized how hungry this exploring had made me and reached into the cupboard to grab a quick snack.

Rice Krispies Treats. Perfect.

But as I thought about the unknown some more, I turned the box around to check out the ingredients. Mostly just rice and sugar, right?

Wrong. I was surprised to see about 20 additional ingredients, most of which I had never heard of before. I chose a random one of out the list that sounded foreign to me – “BHT for freshness”.
BHT. Butylated hydroxytoluene.

The first two hits on google read, Two Preservatives to Avoid and 12 Dangerous and Hidden Food Ingredients in Seemingly Healthy Foods.

After clicking on the first, a wellness report from Berkeley, I began reading about how BHT is anticipated to be a possible carcinogen, after having been linked to an increase in cancer in animals. My chewing quickly slowed to a halt.
I thought about how much of the foods I eat likely had these same preservatives and unknown ingredients in them and shivered.
How silly I now felt, fearing what lay around the bend at a reservoir, after realizing I didn’t even know half of what was hidden in the foods I eat.

Maybe I’ve been focusing on the wrong unknowns my whole life, I thought, as I threw away the half-eaten Rice Krispies Treat and washed off a few organic carrots.

It’s not often that I have an opportunity to wake up early; treat myself to a good stretch; say good morning to the other chemists, still fast asleep, wrapped in their wings and hanging upside down from the ceiling Brown Lab’s basement by their talons; and blinking, step into the sun. Yesterday was a special day. I took my irreparably rusted Schwinn cruiser, Eleanor, into the wild. Now you must understand, my undergraduate research experience has been put towards using chemistry to mitigate the world’s carbon dioxide problem–arguably the root of the vast majority of ecological crises–by finding alternatives to hydrocarbon fossil fuels. However, I have enjoyed the luxury of doing this work in a room isolated from the nature we are trying to cure. But finally, it was time to venture outwards into the flood of light provided by that large ball of fire in the sky that cannot even be seen from lab. Just as Jonas Salk volunteered as the first human subject of his own polio vaccine, just as Werner Forssman snaked a ureteral catheter up a vein in his own arm to invent the first cardiac catheter, just as Isaac Newton inserted a needle under his eye and wiggled it around in the back of his eye socket just to see what would happen; I had to put my own life on the line and go out there.

Eleanor screeched with every turn of the pedal, but the old girl’s still got it. We moseyed up Creek Road and veered onto a walking trail there, settled between two walls of dirt, roots, vines, and trees. We glided under two uprooted trees that had laid themselves perfectly over the trail like an overpass for small woodland creatures. I smiled at the thought. There was a mystic force field on those uprooted trees that stretched down all the way down and spanned the width between the walls of nature flanking the trail. When we rode through it, thoughts of stressors and obligations were brushed away. After a good deal of aimless meandering, Ellie and I found the perfect spot.

The trail dips down at a small opening to a landing on the ambling, clear water of White Clay Creek (I realized later that the water itself was clear, but the stream bed gave it a rusty brown appearance), leading to a large white rock set into the stream–a perfect vantage point to absorb the scenery. I was just about to climb down to the landing using a tree root when I saw the spider. There are spiders, and then there are spiders. This one was the latter; one you’d need the light of Eärendil’s star to fend off. It sat in the middle of its web that hung across the opening from two bordering trees, like a guard stationed at its gate, barricading the entrance to the creek landing. I named the spider, Cerberus. It might have been my body adjusting to fresh air from the usual fumes of dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, and other organic solvents in lab, or maybe heat stroke was setting in, but I could have sworn I saw bits of leftover squirrel in his web from his last meal. Regardless, I decided to view the creek from afar this time.

People often talk about how isolation and meditation augment senses, and I felt it most drastically in my hearing. Instead of tuning out the cacophony of cars, footsteps, doors, cell phones, and sorority girls, I truly listened, and the effect was more soothing than drinking tea and listening to Enya while someone plays with your hair. It was really beautiful. I closed my eyes. Behind me and to the left, a group of insect calls swelled, sounding like a schoolteacher gently hushing the children: “shhh sh sh sh sh sh sh shhh,” crescendoing and decrescendoing. As they were finishing, ahead of me and to the right another group picked it up, “shhh sh sh sh sh sh sh shhh,” and then another ahead and to the left. And they continued in canon as a cricket just to the left of me joined in with its own whistle. In the distance to my right two birds were calling and answering in a kind of screech that sounded alarmingly like Eleanor. When I opened my eyes, I watched the vines and saplings at my feet bow and bob with the breeze, mesmerizing and gentle. In the brush to my left, a small bird hopped from branch to branch, and Cerberus looked at me with his eight eyes as if to say, “Well if you’re not gonna eat that thing, I will.”

A humorous kerplunk brought my attention back to the water, where something had fallen in the middle of the creek. The ripples radiated serenely; downstream, they dispersed, while upstream they pushed against the lazy flow of the creek and eventually swelled and turned on themselves. The shape of it was beautiful. The math of it was beautiful. The serenity was something I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in a long, long while. And the greatest juxtaposition to my every day was that it was no different. There are a million things happening around us as we hustle and bustle and stress. It’s no different in the woods. In 2008 the Water Resources Agency of the Institute for Public Administration at the University of Delaware estimated that White Clay Creek was home to 24 species of fish, 33 species of mammals, and about 93 species of birds. Though no data was provided, I can only assume these numbers pale in comparison to the myriad species of insects that enrich the area. Yet somehow in all the chaos, there is peace out there.

The Memorial chimes brought me back to civilization. I said my adieus to Cerberus, hopped on Eleanor, and we muddled our way back in time for class.

Life always seems to come in waves – a moment of peace, followed by a crash of exuberance. A relaxing and quiet summer is followed immediately by 15,000 or so people pilgrimaging to Newark, DE for the start of UD’s newest semester. The relative calm of my junior year, where I finally felt as though I knew what I was doing and found my place, is now pushed away by an immediate sense of dread and panic – I have less than a year left where my life is planned out for me.

The hustle and bustle of a new school year has hit hard, and it hit fast. Gone are the days that I never had to wait in line for my morning coffee, and even to just get a bus from the most northern tip of campus to the most southern point of campus, I need to wait for two or three buses before there’s enough space for me to fit on. But it’s not just the areas that the areas immediately on campus. When I visited the alcove that I’ve called my own throughout the course of the summer, there were footprints. Even my sanctuary is a victim of the insanity that is the beginning of the semester.

The rush of the world that I didn’t feel over the summer is back – even in the place I go to escape it all. Maybe I’m just imagining it, but the creek seems to be flowing with more urgency. The plumb brown Warblers are singing with a sense of desperation, as if it is absolutely critical that their chirps be heard. This is mimicked back on campus with the new freshman with wide-eyes, darting from building to building, maps clutched in hand. Friends are shouting hellos across the green, trying to catch up from months apart in just a few minutes before running to their next class. Planners are being filled and double booked in some cases. No longer do I wake up to the sun peeking through my window, but now a screeching alarm is my morning greeting.

While the wave seems to be crashing hard right now, the insanity will recede soon. It always does. On the sandy beach of Long Beach Island in New Jersey, the salty ocean waves lap onto the perfectly yellow and smooth sandy beaches, but they always retreat, even if for just a moment. The same is true on the rockier edges of Lake Champlain, where the waves crash over the smooth grey river rocks and onto the coarse sand mixed with green sea glass and odd chunks of concrete blocks, left behind by construction projects that have long been completed. Small waves hit the banks of White Clay Creek by my personal alcove, and the sand is really dirt, and not the familiar sand of the Jersey Shore or the beach near my family’s lake house, but the waves are the same. A crash, followed by a retreat. A flood of responsibility and a surge of activity, and while the new responsibilities aren’t withdrawn, they certainly become easier and part of a routine.

There’s never an end to the cycle. In and out, in and out. With each influx, there’s always relief coming soon, no matter how large the wave.

I’ve decided not to paint my nails.

When I was asked to reflect on my favorite place outdoors, I immediately tapped into the memories of my youth. Out of all of my outdoor adventures (some not even leaving my back yard), I resonate most with the experiences I had at a summer camp in the Potomac Highlands of my Appalachian home, West Virginia. I went to an ecology adventure camp at the Mountain Institute’s Spruce Knob Mountain Center for three years. I was nine the first time I went to this camp and when I had my first truly awe-inspiring exposure to nature. Over the course of the week, we went caving, canoed the South Branch of the Potomac, and did overnight hiking stays in the hills. I hate to admit that when thinking about these memories, I feel as if they were dreams. My own brain cannot let them feel real again, they remain replaying in my thought bank, fuzzy and sensationalized. However untrue time makes things, I remember, to the best of my ability, a particular part of the second hiking day.

They took us to a beaver dam in the valley of three major hills, perfectly nestled in the center. This beaver dam had created a pond when it stopped the flow of a smaller creek. We sat and observed the beaver family going about their day and discussed the alterations to the entire valley ecosystem due to the building of the dam (which still fascinates me as much as it did then.) At break time, we ate our snacks and got to explore a bit more of the area. I wandered with my best friend, Sierra, far from the group. And after a good bit of walking and running around, here is where I found my favorite place. A very large patch of mountain fern. Each fern probably around three feet in height, seeming to me almost jungle like at the time. Sierra and I, in the height of our childhood creativity, decided to make “fern angels.” Lying down and spreading our arms and legs out, crushing all the ferns down, acting as the King Kong to New York, but only with these ferns. However, after we finished semi- demolishing our little spot, we didn’t get up right away and run off. We laid there, exhausted, sun warm on our faces, all the sounds of the forest so loud because of the seclusion in the area. I remember looking to my right at the still standing ferns, looking at the spores, and watching all these little critters walking around. Ants, spiders, beetles, and for the first time in my young girly childhood, I wasn’t “grossed out.” I was simply, and purely happy in our gorilla-like fern nest. I remember then looking at my hands. So dirty after a day or two away from base, covered with green chlorophyll fern stains and soil under my stubby little fingernails. But still, just so content to be there, laughing and being warm with my friend in our fern forest.

I think that was one of the happiest moments in my life. That is why Bear Pond is my favorite place. I was utterly comfortable just being wild.

My favorite place outdoors is directly related to the feeling of being wild and carefree. But here is the problem; I can’t recall a moment in my recent history where I have felt like that. Growing up adds responsibility and accountability to your lifestyle but it shouldn’t have dulled me down. I instead have become more “indoors.” I began to be more interested in the people I know and how they see me. I started painting my nails and avoiding dirt and dirty situations most all of the time. I worry that I’ve lost an important connection. Looking around my dorm room, currently, I see these things that marked my change from the fun child to the indoors teen. I see the chemicals and toxins that took away the dirt.

When I was nine, I wasn’t wearing makeup, using exfoliating face wash, or putting products in my hair to keep it shiny. Beaver Pond never saw the trace chemicals of my Covergirl eyeshadow or my Revlon nail polish. It’s untouched from the dipropylene gycol of my eye makeup remover or the tocopheryl acetate of my hairspray, the chemical harm of my “growing up.” Sure I used some products that contain these chemicals back then. But not to the ridiculous extent I use them now. I have makeup that is supposed to contour my face, but I never really feel the need to have extra contouring. Just staring at all these things I have bought and how unnecessary most seem. How each knew thing marks a new age at which I got this product to do this so I can look this. It just all seems so tame. I feel like I have lost most of the wild child within me.

So here is my point. I don’t want to paint my nails. It seems silly, but this is a small step for me to becoming a bit wilder, more natural, at least in my eyes. A bit more of the adventurous kid, who felt happy seeing the dirt on her hands, instead of upset with the chip in the paint on her nail.

So with naked fingers and little to none of other products, I went out this weekend to find my place here at UD on White Clay Creek. After a couple of failed search attempts, horrible stinging nettle experiences, falling down one or twenty times, and the strange looks of all passer-bys who saw me scramble out of the brush, I spotted a nice secluded place on the bank and walked/fell down about an 85 degree decline to get there. In front of me was a random island that formed in the river, probably due to flooding. A canopy of what I think might be beech trees lay overhead, the leaves a bit eaten away or deteriorated leaving a black and white pattern amongst their green. The sun peaked only a little through the tree leaves but left a pattern of warmth on the ground almost like a kaleidoscope. I lay down; after all, it was some kind of journey to find this spot. I looked to my left and saw bright yellow, blue stem goldenrod, being circled by honey bees. I saw caterpillars and daddy long legs sitting on the lower leaves of these flowers. I felt warm as a breeze shifts the leaves, causing the sun spot to touch my face. An hour later, I got up to leave. Walking a few feet over to the now steep incline leading up to the path, I saw a few ferns growing near the wall of the bank. Feeling accomplished, I walked home covered with a thin coat of dirt and a new place.

I may still occasionally use these products I’ve accumulated over the years, but my nails will be nude. It’s my first step in getting back to the basics where I felt less obligated to create the person I wanted to be by accumulating an assortment of chemicals to do that job and a little more content knowing that there will be other places, other moments, and new kinds of fern angels.

As I hiked through the deer-trodden and human-trodden paths along White Clay Creek, I felt frustrated; I couldn’t seem to find a location that was good enough to be “my spot” for the semester. I wanted to get away from manmade objects (telephone wires, dams, fences, etc.) so I could feel immersed in nature, but I also wanted a location that would be relatively convenient to get to every week.

After my legs were sufficiently scathed by thorns and stinging nettle (I realized the paths along the creek were not as clear as they were last year and I wondered why), I turned around with hopes of entering further down the road and finding a more satisfactory spot. Just then, I noticed an enormous millipede marching along the path. I stopped and stared until it disappeared into the grass. Above it, bees pollinated green-head coneflowers, their yellow fur in a sunshine spotlight on the matching yellow petals. A bit further down the path, I saw a toad hop forward. I remained still and watched it leap between two tree roots. A moment later, I saw a group of about 9 ducks waddling through the grass—it looked like they were playing follow the leader! This felt very special; I had the privilege to peer into their lives for a moment, and forget about myself. I watched them intently as they nibbled on plants, their heads darting back and forth almost comically. When one looked at me and tilted its head I couldn’t help but smile. I felt my ego slipping away. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that I could see a wire running through the tree leaves or hear the dam just a few yards away; there was so much life around me. Suddenly, I wasn’t judging my self or my surroundings.

Suddenly, every spot was good enough.

I turned around and began walking toward the creek again, appreciating the occasional stinging nettle burn for making me feel alive with a visceral reaction. I halted in my tracks when I spotted a beautiful pearl crescent butterfly perched on a leaf in the sunlight, opening and closing its wings as if to show off. One of its wings was slightly damaged, making its flight even more beautiful and triumphant.

I returned to the path along the creek, sat down, closed my eyes, and listened: insects, dam, airplane, birds. I felt: slight breeze, spotted sunshine through the branches, muggy air swallowing me, sand beneath me, leaves tickling my arm. I opened my eyes and observed: leaves floating slowly down the creek, sunlit reflections of trees in the water, countless shades of green, a fallen sycamore as white as snow—leaning elegantly, slightly sunken into the creek, contrasting life and death, artful, serene—lady’s thumb smartweed beside me, black walnut trees and hickory trees above me, a newspaper ad half buried in the sand (“ALL WEEK PRICE BREAK, On Sale Sat. 8/23”), yellowing leaves periodically falling gracefully into the creek—spinning, landing, creating ripples. I smiled. I breathed. I appreciated. I thought of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day,” and her musings about “pay[ing] attention,” “kneel[ing] down in the grass,” and “be[ing] idle and blessed” with the spirituality of nature.

My body and my mind synchronized: a feeling I yearn to experience more often. So much of my life happens within my mind, I often forget I am a physical body. I focused on my breathing, and thought about my heart beating and my blood flowing through my body. I don’t have a body; I am my body (as Eckhart Tolle teaches). I’m a living being, just like the ducks and the stinging nettle and the butterfly.

Now, thoughts start flowing freely and openly as I sit next to the creek and write. My mind drifts naturally to a memory from this past winter during my study abroad trip to India. We trekked in the Himalayas, from a town near Darjeeling into a small hiker’s lodge in Nepal where we spent the night. After huddling around the fire sipping on tea and listening to our professor tell stories from Hindu mythology, I remember going to bed wishing I had spent more alone time on the mountain. At 3:58am I woke up, and I knew I had to go outside. I felt pulled with an intensity that was entirely new to me. It was as if I didn’t consciously decide to go outside, as if I was simply listening to the universe. Even after my watch malfunctioned and my flashlight broke, I didn’t hesitate. I put on my shoes, bundled up, and ventured out into the darkness. I felt my way to the top of the hill where we had looked upon the Kanchenjunga mountain range during sunset the previous night. I sat down. The only things I could hear were the wind and the occasional rustling around of farm animals.

It was a new kind of quiet for me. It was beautiful. However, I remember feeling as though the sound of my breath was disruptive, as though I was ruining the serenity, selfishly and intrusively. But something spoke to me in that moment and placed the word “unity” in my mind with amazing clarity. I let go of my ego, as I simply existed in the Himalayas. I appreciated my breath as something that coexisted with my surroundings, not something that interrupted them. My breath contributed to everything, mingling with the wind. I blended into the nature around me. While I haven’t been able to define God with certainty since 4^th grade, I now come to the realization (after talking about it with someone I love very deeply) that this is a huge part of what God is to me—transcending, letting go of ego, blending, opening up, existing, appreciating—

The breeze just picked up, seemingly in response to what I was writing. How wonderful.

“Make sure you go where the people are!”, my mom advised as I relied my plans for the next day over the phone.  Somehow – despite me spending collectively a few months over the past four years leading trips in the wilderness – she was still a bit concerned about me wandering into White Clay.  Fear of the unknown creates anxiety, but the irony is that as a “nation of great indoorsmen”, our indoor settings are potentially harmful as well.

In White Clay, I pick a wooded spot next to the creek beyond a sea of grasses.  Naturally upstream, I think.  In public health, the stream analogy is frequently used to describe the impact that socioeconomic factors have on health outcomes.  At the intersection of environmental health and the social determinants of health, the “Big Box Store” chapter is particularly alarming.  We – most of my peers at UD – have two things working for us: education and a relatively comfortable socioeconomic status.  Even before reading What’s Gotten Into Us, I would often buy organic products and natural detergents (and know I should).  What about the people who can’t afford these products? What will their body burdens look like?

The timing is just right for vivid evening light in White Clay.  It is about 6 o’clock.  To my right, the light from the creek is reflecting on the tree trunk at the creek’s edge.  Ten minutes have passed and the light has changed.  It is amazing how fast and slow time passes when I am out in the woods.

I snag a leaf off of the small tree to my right and begin sketching.  The veins alternate asymmetrically from the stem.  Looking more closely, my mind drifts to Jerry Kauffman’s description of the Brandywine watershed in What’s Gotten Into Us.  The leaf, its veins, the smaller veins, and the surrounding area is a visual representation of what’s going on just a few miles north of my parent’s home in Brandywine Valley.  No wonder pollution from Pennsylvania wrecks havoc on the Wilmington water treatment plant – the watershed is all connected, just as this leaf in my hand.  We are disconnected.

Sketching helps me calm down and focus on the present.  Lately, I’ve been in a bit of a haze – in fact, trying to take on less responsibility than I typically would due to the fact that I am a senior (and already busy).  From my sketches of the leaves in the tree-cover framed by the sky, I observe that perhaps there is a red oak above my spot.  I’ll have to investigate more next week to confirm.

Because I grew up in Maine, I am a hybrid mountain and ocean person.  I visited Acadia National Park this summer with my brother and found the topography and the ecosystems on Mount Desert Island to be stunning.  I appreciate the description of the Maine Body Burden study in Ch. 1 because the way Mainers think (“I can’t have that many chemicals in my body”) parallels the way we all think.  Mainers probably think like that because to the eye, many parts of Maine seem pristine – visiting the state is almost like stepping back in time.  In Camden, where I grew up, the closest malls were about an hour and a half away.  People in Maine may use slightly less consumer products – but alarming toxins are in nearly all consumer products – making them just as ubiquitous.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”.  I first heard of Mary Oliver on an Outward Bound backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada four years ago.  Oliver’s commentary on human nature through poetry is already striking a cord with me.  Roses do not ask “how long they must be roses”.  People, keenly aware of their own mortality and typically mega-individualistic, are always moving to the next step.  I always tell myself that I will live in the present – soon.  A sit in the woods, without headphones, allows me to focus on the present – now.

As I walk out of White Clay on the road, past an abandoned property, hear the familiar ribbits of a frog.  Still focused on the present – not how much I have to do upon arriving back on campus – I walk over to further investigate.  Ribbits stop.  I walk away.  Ribbits start again.  I walk back.  Ribbits stop.  I give up.  I am merely a visitor in his habitat.

We are merely visitors here on Earth.