Elizabeth's blog

Last night, my site was different than usual. For one, I visited the site at night. The tree I sit under has also lost a lot of leaves. When I was wondering around last night, trying to find my usual branch, I was scared out of my wits. The tree looked incredibly different--I wasn't sure if I was looking in the right tree. And I couldn't see any squirrels (which is not a good thing, because they have become very fond of sneaking up on me). So, despite not being very religious? I said the Hail Mary out loud over and over again. But, after I'd found the spot andfoully checked out the tree with my flashlight for squirrels, I managed to settle down a lot. The only noise I could hear was from humans. I could hear myself, and also a lot of noise from Radnor and a few people walking by the tree. The piece of "nature" I go to every weekend is really not in nature. Now that the leaves aregoing, it no longer even looks like that might bepossible. It's very touches by the well-to-do "nature" of the college. It's even touched by religion.

I chose to have class today in the Quita Woodward Room because of its windows. Goodhart's glass atrium would have given us a more panoramic, uninterrupted view, but it was closed for student use because of the production. So, the Quita Reading Room it was! I'm really glad that we ended up having class there (although sorry for the short notice!)--it was warm and the wood paneling and bookshelves made it all the more cozy.

From where I was sitting, there was a large tree right in view, and Rock seemed to almost create a courtyard around it. The wind was twirling its branches all around, and it seemed to have lost quite a lot of its yellow leaves because of it. I was certainly very glad to be out of that storm! A major downfall of not being outside was the lack of noise, though. If we had been out in that windstorm, I could have heard the wind whipping through that tree. Instead, I heard myself typing notes about the view. More isolated from the outdoors than usual, I wrote instead of observing. There are quite a lot of distractions outside, but I usually give them all equal weight, instead of being more involved in note-taking than the actual class.

That being said, I was still a lot more comfortable out of the cold. Especially now that winter is coming, I'll just have to get used to observing inside, and find a balance between reflecting on my surroundings and paying attention to them.

Today, when I sat on my new branch on in the same tree that I've been sitting in this semester, the tree was still green. A couple of weeks ago, there were lots of yellow, orange, and brown leaves on the tree, waiting to fall off. Hurricane Sandy must have taken care of that. Now, from the outside, the tree looks green and happy, like it did at the beginning of the year. From the inside, though, there are a lot of totally bare branches. The branches above my old spot are so bare that the "tent" I have been talking about has turned into an amphitheater. The new spot is pretty covered up top, but there are a lot of barren places.

Sitting on tree branches has been made a lot more comfortable now that there's a wool coat providing a cushion. I got to snuggle into my scarf and wonder where the multitudes of squirrels had gone. In the next couple of weeks, I'm going to bring some cocoa along and make sitting in the tree even cozier. What happens in December, though? How long are we going to sit outside? I love the outdoors, but, at some point, sitting outside for a half an hour just isn't going to be that fun anymore.

Next Thursday, we're going to read a preface written by Gloria Steinem. I know it's a bit late, but I found out that she is giving a talk at Haverford tonight. If you're interested in going, here's a link to the description on Haverford's website: http://www.haverford.edu/calendar/details/207291

A few weeks ago, for class on October ninth, we read three essays by Ursula Le Guin. This was, I know, a frighteningly long time ago. Nevertheless, I am still going to insist on blogging about one of those essays, because I really wish I had brought it up in class.

The essay was “Science Fiction and the Future” (1985). It was, on the whole, a very interesting discussion about how different societies view time. There was a short paragraph relating American views of time (or maybe Western views of time-- Le Guin is a bit vague on whose view it is. She just assumes her reader is a part of the society that views time this way.) to a critique of imperialistic science fiction and a need to, essentially, go with the flow, and not try to conquer the future. Her commentary on these Western views is insightful, and I agree with them. But the way that Le Guin comes to a lot of her insights about Western views of time is through a comparison with the ideas of time that the Quechua-speaking peoples of the Andes,” and the way that she makes that comparison is problematic.

When we took our geological tour of Bryn Mawr on Thursday, we learned a lot about rocks. Like our trip to Harriton House, we also learned about how humans manipulate their surroundings. I have, in my past observations of my on-campus site, been very tentative about harming that environment. I hesitate before I bounce a little on the branches that I sit on and tentatively brush the vine-like branches aside when I walk to the tree trunk. I try not to impose myself upon the tree.

But, today, I did something that I’ve never done before while sitting under my tree. I used an umbrella. Harriton House leases apartments to sustain itself and Bryn Mawr College diverts runoff for the township to compensate for its own. Today, I, too, added a man-made object into the equation to make myself more comfortable. As much as I like to think that the willow I observe protects me, it still manages to let a not insignificant amount of rain through. So, despite planning on letting the rain drops fall down peacefully on me, I opened my umbrella back up.

I didn’t harm the tree. I might have hurt my chances of observing nature a bit, but I also improved my overall experience. Because I used the umbrella, I don’t resent the tree for not protecting me. And the tree doesn’t resent me. Sometimes, it’s okay to supplement nature a little bit to make ourselves more comfortable. It’s really alright.

We talked a lot about sustainability when we were at Harrington House yesterday. Sustainability meant something different when Bruce used it in terms of Harriton House, and when I hung out in my spot afterwards, it made me think of the sustainability of the beech tree that I've been sitting in.

A lot of the trees and deer that are around Harrington House are really abundant now, but they were hardly in the picture when Harriton was built. Even though I sit in a tree every week to observe "nature," I'm really sitting in an arboretum--a pale, human-made replica of what nature "should" look like. I observe a representation of nature, next to a grass lawn, this week with pop music blaring from the athletic fields. Like the "nature" around Harriton House, the tree sit in, and other bits of "nature" on the campus allows the collegiate image of Bryn Mawr to be sustainable.

Like the deer near Harriton, the squirrels that scamper around the college are probably a lot more populous than is "natural." But I still see the squirrels as being a part of nature. I still think that my issues with squirrels reflect a greater problem with animals and anything not molded or consciously protected by humans. Now I just need to figure out what humans have influenced, and what's really supposed to be out there. Or even what "supposed to be" really means.

Just in case you forget, or weren't informed of this after class today, it'd be great if everyone who is going to walk to Harriton House could meet up in front of the gym at 11:15. I was thinking that we should meet up at 11:15 and not on Bryn Mawr time. Does anyone have thoughts about that?

Windy out but not in here

A tent that shields from the elements

But shutting me in

With a squirrel

Absent right now

But any minute

Any second

It could approach.

Am I sitting where the squirrels fight?

Where they thought

They could frolic and wander free

Away from students.

But here

Even when they are absent,

I am in their tracks

They cannot escape from me

As I invade their space

And I cannot escape from them.

Funnily enough, sometimes animals live in nature. There are squirrels in the tree that I'm observing in, and we have some unresolved issues.