mturer's blog

Because of injury-related problems I experienced at the end of the week, I haven't been able to post my weekly observation yet. To avoid this in the future, I have decided to change my location. Other factors contributed to this decision, like the fact that the large green electrical box in my previous spot disrupts the feeling of being hidden and removed that first attracted me to the tree.

My new spot is conveniently next to Erdman, where I live. I'm not sure what it's known as, but it has a sign that says "Erdman Lookout" and it is a stone circle on top of a little hill. I will be sitting on the steps on the hill that face a lot of interesting plant life and, in the background, the wildflower garden.

Currently, this area is completely covered with what seems like orange leaves. The tree that these leaves used to belong to still has plenty of leaves of its own, but it's let go of a sea of leaves that now completely hide the grass underneath. 
 When I looked closer, I found that the leaves were not just orange, but a spectrum of yellow and orange and red and brown. I just perceived them to be orange. 
This reminded me of art classes from when I was little, in which my teacher told me to look at a cloud and tell her all the colors I saw in it and I was not allowed to say "white."

The genre of my Thoreauvian walk is not obvious. My description of the ecological aspects of Bryn Mawr is very pastoral as I mention feeling "at peace with my surroundings," incorrectly portraying them in an idealized fashion. However, while reading my essay a second time, I noticed that I casually include some elements of the supernatural in a work that is intended to be nonfiction. Trees are able to fight back when humans alter them and a force only named as "nature" is able to guide me, the protagonist, on my walk without my influence. Because of this, I have chosen to rewrite my Thoreauvian walk as a fable or fairy tale.

Original:

This week, I share in Sarah's distance predicament. I always thought Rock was rather close to where I live, but apparently that distance is subjective. Last week, when I was perfectly able, the tree was not far at all. This week, with an injury, I might as well have walked to Brecon. By the time I got there, standing for too long became difficult and sitting on the tree was the worst of all. I had no hope of climbing it. I stood on the ground in the shade of the damp tree for as long as I could, but after a while I had to go back to my human den to lie down. What if I didn't have a comfortable, soft white bed to fall into? What if I, like any other species, had to live in the wild? I would choose this spot. It is shady and secluded from predators and outside influences and I would probably deal with the pain of my injury and climb the tree until I was hidden more and until I found a comfortable branch. I would have to put up with all the spiders and who knows what else that I have chosen to eliminate from my human-space room, but I would be used to them. It would be okay.

The pinecones continue to be an interesting thing to look at. I found they are especially interesting from the ground, where I have never really looked at them before. I am not yet sure if this matters in my decision to choose a new wilderness home to lie down in.

Original:

    Pinecones bloom on bare branches like impossible flowers. I don’t think they look real. I have no idea what makes me think so. Maybe it’s the hum of the electrical green box just outside the tree. Maybe I have just forgotten pinecones over the summer and replaced them in my mind with underwater grass beds. They now constitute a fake tree, apparently.

Rheomode:

    Blooming and flowering impossibly on branches, defying assumptions by existing as a pinecone, pineconing. Processing in the brain and opposing this vision. Knowing nothing about the causing. Humming of the perceiving to be green box invalidating visual clues. Forgetting pinecones and replacing with swimming grass and breathing of water by animals. Leading to confusing the seeing of pinecones during the happening. Changing the vision to being deceiving.

                Today inside the tree, there are spiders everywhere. I mean it. Crawling and hanging from branches, the spiders have taken over the tree. At first, I thought this was excellent. There are so many different species of little creatures scuttling and skipping around on quick legs, coexisting and interacting with each other, that our human idea of “diversity” looks boring by comparison. Imagine if humans could create intricate cities out of material produced from our own bodies with the help of other humanoid creatures that are twice or half our size. Spiders are great. Maybe we’re not as advanced as we think we are, in some ways. We can’t even handle difference within our own species, so we would probably handle coexisting with another species like us very poorly.

What is happening in the tree? Is it spidering? Is it crawling, weaving, or living? These creatures do too much in their complicated lives to be simplified to a word like this. It isn’t fair to them. No writing is fair to them. Only a spider can really constitute a spider. A word about a spider doesn’t really mean much.

            I have had a nursery rhyme in my head all day that I haven’t heard in years. I have discovered that having a song stuck in one’s head makes observation of nature very difficult. I have been trying to observe, but I keep being interrupted by the lyrics.

            Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot
            Prete-moi ta plume pour ecrire un mot
            Ma chandelle est morte, je n’ai plus de feu
            Ouvre-moi ta porte, pour l’amour de Dieu

Green
OED:
I. With reference to colour.
1. Of a colour intermediate between blue and yellow in the spectrum; of the colour of grass, foliage, an emerald, etc.
Freq. with prefixed nouns or adjectives denoting a particular shade. apple, bottle-, dark, emerald-, grape-, grass-, lettuce, olive-, pea-, sea-green: see the first element. See also sense B. 4a.
a. Designating growing vegetation, grass, etc.

dictionary.com:
1. of the color of growing foliage, between yellow and blue in the spectrum: green leaves.
2. covered with herbage or foliage; verdant: green fields.
3. characterized by the presence of verdure.
4. made of green vegetables, as lettuce, spinach, endive, or chicory: a green salad.

Miriam-Webster: 
 1: of the color green
2a : covered by green growth or foliage <green fields>
b of winter : mild, clement
c: consisting of green plants and usually edible herbage <a green salad>
3: pleasantly alluring
4: youthful, vigorous
5: not ripened or matured <green apples>
6: fresh, new

Blue 
OED:
1. a. The name of one of the colours of the spectrum; of the colour of the sky and the deep sea; cerulean. 

           In order to walk through Bryn Mawr like Thoreau, I began at the center. I felt that as locating the center was an objective of mine, I could not let a predetermined destination interfere with the way nature wanted to take me. Nature was guiding me. Nothing else should be guiding me. Following Thoreau, I wanted to be guided unconsciously by “nature’s subtle magnetism” rather than by an end point. A walk should have no purpose or destination, so I set out on my sauntering walk to see where the walk took me.

Hello! My name is Max Turer and I am a sophomore

a. Rank the five locations in order of where you felt happiest.
1.) Morris Woods
2.) The glass staircase in Dalton Hall
3.) English House 1
4.) Park Science 20
5.) Campus Center parking lot