I can’t remember what it feels like to be warm. In both the physical sense and emotional sense. The warm sensation that usually accompanies this feeling is a distant memory at this point in time, and I struggle every day to try to bring it back into my life somehow. The past few weeks have been extremely nerve-wracking, both academically and temperature-wise. Just as we finally reach spring (and approach a much needed spring break) and I expect to feel content at last, rumors of another snowstorm begin to spread around campus like wildfire. Why now? Clearly the universe can sense my heightened levels of stress and anxiety, choosing to top everything off by throwing yet another obstacle in my path to success.

The sound of my boots methodically pounding on the concrete below pulls me away from my dismal thoughts and makes me attune to the silence that surrounds me. Sometimes silence is a beautiful thing, and other times it can swallow you whole and make you go crazy, trying to fill it in any way possible. At this time I choose to fill it by focusing on my breathing and the sounds of birds around me, signifying to each other in a language I am incapable of understanding. Glancing up I see a hawk gliding above the treetops, sailing through the sky majestically and becoming one with the wind. I’ve always wondered what it’s be like to be a bird and see life from a new, superior perspective to that of everyone else. It must be remarkable to be able to look down on the world and sail around effortlessly without a worry in the world, above all the negative energy and hardships that constitute life on ground. To me a bird has the perfect life; if only I could somehow take flight myself and escape from all the responsibilities binding me to Earth.

The creek is extremely clear today, and its translucent surface gives me a glimpse into the murky depths below. The dark brown, muddy bottom shows no signs of life save for an unfortunate dead fish, its body lying mangled on the creek floor in a symbol of hopelessness and despair. I wonder gloomily what happened to it, and pray I don’t end up in a similar fate in what is sure to be a brutal and never-ending week ahead of me. Staring at the fish I think of a passage in The Forest Unseen that particularly stood out to me about the tiny ant’s struggle with a piece of fruit: “The fruit is as large as the ant, but she raises it high above her head… sets off for the center of the mandala, stumbling over maple flower stems, recovering, falling into leaf crevices, crawling onward. Her path is torturous, circling back to bypass gashes in the leaf litter, walking backward through tangles of catkins” (88). The desperate struggle of the ant with the weight of something as large as her own body left me in awe and was especially inspiring. As she “reaches a penny-sized hole in the litter and ducks down” (88) I revel in her success and wish I, too, could be as strong. If something as tiny as an ant could take on and overcome such an enormous weight on her own, why can’t I? It seems silly but the story of the ant inspires me to keep going even when the going gets rough, and to power through even when it seems like I have hit rock bottom.

Thinking of the tiny ant and decrepit fish alerted me to the constant, everyday battle in life, essentially the fight for survival. Some are lucky enough to win the battle (the ant), while unfortunately, others do not have the same luck (the fish). Life can be unusually cruel sometimes, but the lesson I took away from the story is this: You win some and you lose some, but as long as you have an internal drive to move forward, anything is possible. I will remember the story of the ant as I tackle the upcoming week filled with inevitable stress that accompanies piles of work, quizzes, and exams, continuing to climb up the mountain no matter the obstacles in my way, just as she did.