I can remember applying for this internship during the first week of March, when it seemed like the Pandemic was only in Seattle. I can remember thinking that this could be the longest I’d be on campus and away from home, if I got accepted. I can remember the end of April getting an email saying that they needed more time to figure things out. It was the only internship I had applied to that hadn’t been outright canceled, so I held out hope. I can remember the first Tuesday of May and being elated when I received a notice in my inbox that I’ll be remotely interning this summer for the Paulson Program from June 8 to July 17. I remember having weeks until the program started. I remember the first day. I remember days here and there. It’s been over a week since it ended. I miss it. I miss the schedule, the routine. I miss working on something that is good for me, others and the planet. I miss the feeling of purpose that felt right. I miss the jubilation of our meetings. I can remember thinking, wow, we have so many weeks to do a project. Then, there was only one week left, time was running out, time ran out.

It was everything I had asked for in an internship, and then some.

During the beginning of the last week, I drove around town for 2-3 hours one day and 1-2 hours the next. I had selected various people I had gone to school with or attended my church to deliver letters to asking them to help with my project. In hindsight, I should have rung the door bell or had an actual conversation with the residents of the homes that I opened and closed their mailboxes. Only 1 out of 24 or so people in town actually responded to the letter. No one on my street or next to my street did. However, I wouldn’t say the driving was a waste of time. Sure my main objective wasn’t accomplished and I did pollute the atmosphere, but I realized a number of things:

There a number of people I knew who lived on private roads or in private neighborhoods. I don’t know what it meant for it to be a private road, but I felt as if I shouldn’t be there. My mom said I was fine, but I wondered what’s the message it’s sending to people. During the Pandemic a couple months ago, there was a news story about how this couple, maybe an elderly couple, enjoy morning walks around streets and neighborhoods in town by the beach and shoreline. However, it’s a private area and a newly hired security guard at the road entrance told them they couldn’t come this way anymore. I understand the need to draw a line and keep people out when there’s a Quarantine, but shouldn’t there be exceptions?

You can appreciate or observe nature in your car if you don’t know where you’re going exactly, there are other cars on the road, you’re focused on driving… The need for speed and efficiency while it has made the world smaller also keeps us a part. You miss a lot when you’re always pedal to the medal or on the gas. I find this to be similar to the stress culture at high schools or colleges. There is no time or emphasis on play, recreation and relaxation. If there is, these things are just another task on a checklist. I believe one of the goals of the Paulson Internship this summer, perhaps unintentional, was to get us to slow down and observe. You don’t see where you’ve been or where you are when you’re driving, only where you’re going. Constantly living in the future but never in the present.

There were lots of wooded areas in the different neighborhoods I pasted through or stopped in. I parked next to one and the cacophony of birds was absolutely beautiful. Some of these areas had a plaque saying: Darien Land Trust. I would like to do a project on them or add them to my existing Nature in Darien Project. However, some of the wooded areas didn’t have the plaque. Were they owned by the town government? The land owner? Why were they there? Were they “curated”? In 9th grade English class, I read excerpts from the Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and I remember the setting of the forest kept coming up again and again. I have a feeling the book and the message was probably quite imperialistic. But I don’t remember.

There is much more that I wish to muse on, but I will conclude with two things: nurture and gratitude. If you ever find yourself scared, afraid, unsure, depressed, angry, lost, alone, afraid or something similar, please remember these two things. They might not seem like much but they are very powerful.

I have found feeding the birds these past few weeks, and of course the squirrels, the fact of caring for something else besides my self to be a very rejuvenating and healing endeavor. It has been a chaotic several months in the world and there are times when I feel helpless. It’s much harder to feel helpless when caring for something or someone else. Consent is key. I also had the opportunity to feed a couple cats, water plants and take a number of bugs from inside my house back to the outdoors. I suppose Lily, Mika and Phoebe’s projects can fall somewhere near this word. Phoebe’s interview subjects were caring for their lawns. Mika was caring for the Pine Knoll and hopes other students will continue to do so. Lily built a Cobb Oven. While at first, does not seem like caring, there is probably upkeep involved, but even if not, the act of building something and then using what you’ve built to be falls into nurture. Maybe someone who is reading this could help build on my case here.

Secondly, gratitude is important. There is a saying that we want what we do not have. But once we have it, we just want something else. I was watching, Star Trek, the Next Generation the other night and Geordi La Forge in one episode, driven into a little maddness, is overcome with the desire to see the way humans do. Another character points out that he can see, but he insists he wants to see the way humans do so he can understand why they love the sight of sunrises, sun sets and rainbows so much. Why are sunrises and sun sets so special if they happen every day?

To conclude, my sincere gratitude for this internship and opportunity. Wendy Paulson ’69 thank you for creating this initiative. Dr. Suzanne thank you for leading our meetings, running the initiative and opening doors for all Wellesley students. I appreciate your flexibility and good nature. Bindu, thank you for taking charge, leaving amazing comments on our blog posts and work and providing excellent feedback and support for me. Mika, thank you for making me never look at a tree stump the same way again, keeping me connected to Bates and bringing your deep introspective mind and gratitude to the table. Miracle, thank you for connecting me to the greater world, asking questions, being brutally honest and always being full of laughter in moments of lull. Kayli, thank you for bring your spunk and energy to meetings and projects, thank you for your curiosity, making things your own, your Texas Pride and cool hats. Phoebe, thank you for your poetic mindset, your dedication towards hard work and excellence and sharing your connection to your family and home. Lily, thank you for teaching us new words, for always making me laugh and reminding me that everything’s gonna be okay. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone.

I look forward to planning our next reunion and a surprise for someone hopefully before then.

As June turned into July, college administrations announced their presence and decisions. Nature had a better announcement.

Fireflies!

The first Monday evening of July I spent awhile outside after the sun had set. I decided that I would make an attempt to workout in my backyard. I began with a light two laps circling less than a third of an acre, the dynamic warm-ups I could still remember from Frisbee practices that feel like eons ago, then preceded to sprint around this way and that across the four sides of my house on four different stretches of grass and finally concluded with stretching while counting out loud: one, two, three, quatre, cinq, six, sept… I felt invigorated. I felt alive and that’s when I first saw them, in front of my eyes, fireflies!

Mankind has had an obsession to conquer nature or rather the mankind I learn about in most of my history classes. Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance, 500 years ago, is most likely the first I heard in history of humans getting close to flight and then the modern airplane more recently. Through fire millions of years ago and electricity and the light bulb more recently, mankind “conquer” light.

The firefly did flight and light long before people did, and even better, are not causing light pollution or carbon emissions…

However, was I thinking about this as I scampered around my yard trying to get a closer look at the magical creature that could fit into the palm of my hand? No, I was too busy trying to see what they looked like and if I could draw them afterwards from memory. So, having the time to reflect allows for greater revelations and thoughts to be made.

Yet, our current world allows for little to no time for reflection. There is no downtime if you don’t make it happen with entertainment, communication and content access 24/7. It’s go, go, go, go. Until, of course, you crash and then sleep, sleep, sleep. I wonder if that’s why some people like the summer. You can sit in a chair outside somewhere and just be.

Or, you can scamper after fireflies without caring if you need to capture them in a photo, turn in an assignment or make the right number of sales for the next quarter.

One of my favorite movies of all time is: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. In a nutshell, it’s about breaking the rules and taking your destiny into your own hands. If I saw the movie today, I probably would find many, many more problematic things than when I first saw it as a kid, but that aside, one of my favorite movie lines of all time is: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

I personally don’t see Ferris wondering around his backyard or a local park at night looking at fireflies, but ever since coming to Wellesley College and being on Wellesley’s campus, the quote pops into my head every once in a while. So, I’ll literally stop, and do a 360 when I’m walking to, or more likely, from an event or another place on campus. I’ve paused to gaze at the stars, the lake, a cute bug crawling across the sidewalk or the looming trees all around me.

I will say the line doesn’t pop into my head as much while I’m at home, but I would argue that the Paulson Summer Internship embodies the quote, at least how I interpreted it, in many ways.

I challenge you to step outside at an hour you normally wouldn’t spend an hour outside and see if you can see something you haven’t seen in awhile.

What is nature? What is listening? Has it really been 3 weeks?

On Monday, I saw first hand the difference between single petal and multi-petal roses. In the evening, the inspiration from a new friend, my skill-set in programming and my interest in climate change all culminated in two ideas for my independent project.

On Tuesday, my two ideas became one. I also managed to arise before dawn and catch the sunrise near the beach (first photo above). Additionally, I heard a symphony of birds at the early hour that I had never heard outside my house before since I’ve never been up and out that early in the summertime. I also managed to attend my sit spot before the earliest meeting slot. There was a spider (second photo above) on the shingles of my house going about her breakfast.

On Wednesday, the backyard birds were my study along with the squirrels and the chipmunks. In the evening, I glimpsed what may have been sea snails and a crab carcass (third photo above).

On Thursday, I continued learning about birds: imitating a Cardinal’s call, seeing Blue Jays unable to use the now squirrel proof bird feeder and finding my new favorite bird species: White-breasted Nuthatch. It was the bravest of all the birds since it continued to fly to the feeder even though I was lying directly under it. (I think based on coloring, it’s a female nuthatch but I can’t be sure.)

On Friday, I possibly visited my first ever home state park and saw a variety of landscapes and creatures. My favorite were either the baby Canadian Geese who were unafraid of coming up very close to me or the quite large rodent that was very hairy and shook as it ran but I was unable to identify it since I never saw its head or face.

I feel as more time goes by, the less and less I do know and the more I wish to know. Also, given the summary of my week above, I find that I tend to focus on animals when observing nature which is probably human nature given that they are a visible size and move (our eyes are attracted to movement). True, one of our assignments this week was to focus on birds, but I would like to challenge myself to think and observe more outside the box in this upcoming week. This is in line with my first question from above: what is nature? I find that I tend to focus on what I can see rather than what I cannot. Even though I really like using my 20/20 vision and have come to see the birds at my sit spot, Canadian Geese and Red-winged Blackbirds as my friends, I want to challenge myself to come up with my own answer to: what is nature? (Although it seems like one of those questions one cannot answer.

This past week, during our meetings and on the topic of birds, I spent a lot of my time listening to what was around me. This weekend, I attended possibly my town’s first ever Pride March which was also a Black Lives Matter Protest. The line from one of our first introductory emails to the Paulson Initiative Summer Internship still rings in my hand: we don’t exist in a vacuum. I stood off to the side and several yards away from the crowd in order to better ensure my own safety during this Pandemic, but on the way there and while I was there, the question, what is listening, kept coming back to me. I’ve always thought of myself as a good listener, but to be honest, sometimes while I listen to the birds I get lost in my own thoughts that are quite unrelated to the moment at hand. In this country, there’s the 1st Amendment of Free Speech, so you’re supposed to be able to talk. But what’s the point in speaking up, if there is so much other sound that no one can hear you? What I have surmised; however, is one cannot talk and listen at the same time. I hope to explore this question further, perhaps in my nature journal.

Finally, I can’t believe it’s only been 3 weeks and there’s only 3 weeks left. I am eager to see what the rest of the internship has in store and hope to be able to seize every moment of it.

I came into week two gung ho and ready to try new things. For starters, setting up the bird feeder in my backyard.

The Bird Feeder

I filled up the feeder that we’ve had at my house for almost a decade, placed it on a hook hanging from a rope on my favorite tree, our backyard’s dogwood and waited. The blue jay came by first. Then, the eastern grey squirrel. I chased them away a few times, but as the week progressed, the squirrels seemed to be less afraid of humans. I remember when we first got the feeder, the opening and closing of the sliding door to the moss covered patio would be enough to get them to flee. It could just be my imagination, but I think the future generations are getting smarter. I would say I am indifferent towards the Sciurus carolinensis using the feeder, but they take away from other birds as well as cause greater wear and tear. Not once, but twice, the wire suspending the feeder was snapped. The first time was most likely a combination of rust and squirrel weight. My mother repaired the contraption by inserting her own suspension wire. However, when I went to refill the feeder at the end of the week, the wire wasn’t long enough for the lid to travel up it and leave enough space for the bag of feed to fit. So, most of the feed ended up on the ground. The next afternoon, sure enough, the feeder was back on the ground, only this time not only was the top not attached but the bottom wasn’t too. I removed the feeder for further repairs and when I returned a few hours later- I saw a mourning dove! Usually it’s only been blue jays, cardinals, house wrens and another small bird I cannot identify. I have seen chipmunks around the lawn, but none seem to venture out in the open near the seeds. Not only was it super cool to see a mourning dove, I realized after trying to learn more about the bird, it’s mourning, not morning. However, there is a morningbird, but the species is only found near Australia.

I wish there was a bird feeder for which both squirrels and birds could benefit without one being overbearing on the other. I have learned squirrels will fight to the death, so that isn’t good for birds as well as squirrels can fall at their terminal velocity and survive! They can pretty much fall from any height and land on their feet unharmed. According to science, as soon as a squirrel starts falling, 300 milliseconds later, they know where they will land and will have their head pointed to the landing target for the duration of their fall. If you’re like me and are not put off by squirrels and want to learn more, especially in terms of squirrels and bird feeders, I’d highly encourage you to check out this video: https://youtu.be/hFZFjoX2cGg

While the intention for birdseed and bird feeders is to feed birds and not squirrels, I think some birds were still fed, this made me curious about ideas for my independent project and the squirrels seem to be happy about the change in their diet.

Liz is a triplet who grew up and is currently residing in a New England town along Long Island Sound and on the New Haven line to New York City. She is a senior at Wellesley majoring in computer science and is one credit short of a religion or english minor. 

On campus, she finds a family away from home in her dorm, Bates Hall, as well as on the ultimate frisbee team, the Whiptails (many species of whiptail lizards are all-female). Liz works on campus as a bike share intern for Wellesley’s bike share program. She enjoys the poetry scene at Wellesley and hosted a couple video chat poetry readings during Quarantine. Additionally, Liz watched lots of tv during Quarantine: God Friended Me, Brooklyn 99, Atypical, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, Dear White People and Ramy. She also read: Falter by Bill McKibben and National Geographic EARTH DAY 50th ANNIVERSARY Special Issue.

Liz was inspired to apply to the Paulson Ecology Initiative Summer Internship because she has been interested in climate change since 5th grade (it’s in writing), enjoyed working outside for Wellesley’s Sustainability Office and wanted to apply her studies and skills towards something that could make a difference in the Earth. She is grateful for this opportunity and is excited to see the end result of her independent project. 

Finally, she urges you to buy stamps and send mail, if you are able, in order to save the United States Postal Service.