Just as I was about to leave the campus center to go do my site, I was invited to listen in on a conversation two of my friends were having. Friend A was telling a recollection of tragic events that had occured in the past and how everything seemed to be eerily connected, but not in a comforting way. I wouldn't consider myself a fan of scary and thrilling, but I would say I'm very into superstition, conspiracies theories and really anything that is grounded in reality but in a way that makes us realize there can be outside forces acting on everything around us making them align in strange ways. Are these occurences actually coincidental or is there something else going on?

In my last site sit, I had noticed the glass bottle and a couple of tin cans scattered about ten feet away, but I chose instead to look beyond them and admire the trees, the leaves, the sounds and feelings of the woods. After laying down to watch golden-red light wrap around boughs and seep into shadows—the same “liquid light... drawn up like sap” Abby wrote about—listening to birdsong amidst an electric hum from over the hill, I slowly sat up and quickly took note of the aluminum can sticking out from the leaves not three feet away. I glared.

The trees were glowing as I sat down. It’s easy to see them out of the corner of your eye, a momentary receptacle for the globe of fire dipping below the horizon. A sunset has a name that’s clear; I’m not sure what one would call that which stands opposite to it. That is, what to call the red, orange, yellow, gold, pink of the opposing clouds, the clouds to the east. It’s like watching the person behind you in a glass window—you get the gist of it but the details aren’t there. Anyway, there weren’t clouds this time, instead it was just the trees. They hit that perfect moment first, when their naked bark, lacking foliage, blazes nothing less than a brilliant gold.

The weather said it was 18 degrees outside and I could hear wind blowing against the building so I bundled up. Coat scarf wool gloves the ski mask I save for special very cold occasions. Outside under the tree on the hill it is very cold but it's a beautiful day to be outside. The sky was so blue and the sun was so bright. This week, the geese were on the upper sports field. They were so loud. As I sat on the bench, I started thinking about what I would write in this post; specifically I thought about how to translate my experience into something that people could read. I haven't had any great insights during my site sits and I'm not sure why someone would want to read a straight description of a generic sounding spot on a college campus.

The Feeling of Being Watched

Each time I’ve gone to my scape so far I have felt as though I was being watch. Of course this doesn’t make sense to me because the pitch is in a secluded place. The only people who would see me are those walking to and from their cars in the school of social work parking lot. So where are the eyes? In the trees? The wind? I can’t give a name or a face or a semblance of an identity to what or who it is that I feel is watching. It also occurs to me that this could just be my way of projecting my feeling of being intrusive upon the grounds of the pitch at this time of year.

In nature, the span of a tree’s branches is often limited by the span of it’s root system. In a classroom, the spread of the ideas that are discussed and developed is limited by the basis of knowledge that the students bring into the class. The directions this knowledge is spread and allowed to ‘grow,’ however, also depends on the way in which these students are being encouraged to think. It’s very important to consider interdisciplinary classes as a high priority because it is these classes that will allow the trees of each discipline to really flourish and become connected.

I visited my location early on Thursday and was slightly saddened to find that it had been tarnished by broken beer bottles and cigarette stubs. I was looking forward to returning to the area that for the last two weeks had been my place of refuge. All the emotions and feelings that had been building up throughout the week seemed to rush to my brain all at once and I couldn't decide what exactly I was feeling. It seemed unreasonable for me to be so annoyed and upset by the fact that my spot had a couple broken glass pieces but it made me feel weird to think about other people not using the location the way I was.The rest of my surroundings seemed the same though.