July, 4:32 PM or thereabouts

pluck from the sky a tangerine suspended in a puddle. oscillations in pale water, clouds

go for a swim across my corneas. i squint, reach up, cradle sun in open palm.

beyond the orchard, oak/maple/birch leaves blur

kinda like my painting palette when i squeezed “light moss” & everywhere:

greengreengreen

smearing paintbrush fibers, the calm wood of my desk

same sun different year.

my palm blisters, tangerine blood scalding fingertips.

chlorophyll fades and tears, a memory left to burn on the sidewalk

of a summer day

******

Since journeying back to rural Appalachia from suburban Massachusetts in a very sudden manner, I’ve spent a fair bit of time ruminating (read: perhaps *too much* ruminating) over the way the physicality of place impacts my conception of self. I’ve found myself falling into old habits and thoughts leftover from my high school years (note that these are not pleasant leftovers one might heat up as a midnight snack, but rather the crusty spaghetti lining an unwashed plate). Yet I also feel distinctly different than I did pre-College. Namely, I feel rather directionless: the contrast between life at Wellesley and life in the veritable Middle of Nowhere has left my mind in a blurry sort of free-fall, and I’ve found it quite difficult to remember who, exactly, “Lily” is. Or more importantly, who she wants to be. An elegant mixture of nostalgia/regret/wistful melancholy underlies my waking hours (…and occasionally, might I add, my dreaming hours as well…). I’ve mourned the moments I might’ve spent  recognizing the beautiful humanity of those around me — cultivating not only my friendships, but also cultivating a more concrete awareness of self. Now that I’m far more secluded than I have been for the duration of my college career, I’ve realized I’ve forgotten how to exist by myself. I crave the physicality not of Wellesley’s campus, but rather the humanity that graces its tree-speckled acreage. A warm embrace post-dinner, a casual touch of the shoulder on the way to class. I long to be perceived, and I long to perceive others.

I’ll admit that — in early June — I balked at the idea of attempting to build meaningful relationships by way of Zoom. How dreadfully unlikely, thought the unknowing Lily, That I’ll genuinely form friendships while staring at blurry icons on a computer screen, my connection lagging and cutting out seemingly at will. Clearly, I underestimated the potency of shared experience and virtual connection. Seeing the faces of my peers made me myself feel more real, more person-like. Listening to their stories and observing their fluctuating Zoom backgrounds transported me from the countryside to a shared space, a space defined — oddly — by the fact of our separation.

I’ve definitely found living at home so suddenly to be unspeakably irksome, draining, and downright confusing. Paulson has offered a reprieve as well as an opportunity to recognize the beauty of my landscape more concretely (how did I ever take all of these trees for granted?!? Unbelievable.)

The gratitude I feel for those involved with the Ecology of Place experience this year is vast: Thank you for being willing to listen as well as share, and thank you for providing purpose to a very Lost Lily.

This Saturday, I enjoyed a (fleetingly) serene morning in the garden while helping my mom repot elderberry trees. Marcia Goldstein doesn’t merely have a “green thumb,” but rather an entire green person — such is her prowess in the art of gardening. Throughout my childhood, plants have blossomed and flourished from all nooks and crannies of the house: devil’s ivy in the windowsill, aloe by the kitchen sink, a mishmash of flowers lining the front walk. A thousand shades of green surround our house, and amidst the olive/crocodile/fern/pickle-hued paradise, my mom wields her watering can, coaxing flora towards the warmth of the sun. In the morning and the evenings and the afternoons alike, she turns soil and buries seeds, the dirt under her fingernails a testament to her passion for plant life. While I’m slightly ashamed to admit it, compared to my garden-prone mother, I’m a veritable city slicker, unversed in the world of growth and decay and cultivation taking place just beyond our window. Historically, plants have shriveled and died beneath my touch (case in point: Chester, the cactus in my dorm room, who I mistakenly recycled). My mom tells me to harvest garlic and I mistakenly pull up the still-youthful onion patch. This morning was no different: I drove shovel into the packed earth, forming a circle around the elderberry tree, only to find I’d mistakenly cut through its pale green roots. Ack! The act of preserving a living thing depends not only on knowledge, but also on a sturdy awareness of the plant itself — an awareness of the way it thrives beneath the soil. Sure, I can pose as an amateur gardener, awkwardly thwacking my way through weeds and thorn-ridden berry patches. To garden as my mother does, however, would require a knowledge of the earth that takes years to accumulate.

Even considering the fact of my paltry gardening knowledge, I have little excuse for my abysmal failure this Saturday morning. This epic failure occurred not while mistakenly sawing the roots of elderberry saplings in half, but rather a few minutes later when my mother asked me to move a cinderblock from inside the chicken fence. Thinking myself a strong-armed gardening type, I decided to heft the cinderblock and attempt to hurl it over the fence. As you might suspect, this turned out to be … not a great idea. Actually, I might go as far as to say it was a Very Bad idea. Since I am not, in fact, powerful enough to throw a cinderblock, the block in question slipped from my grasp, tumbling to land directly on the big toe of my right foot…. *ouch.* I would like to say I handled the agony with dignity, nobly waving away my very concerned mother, yet instead I did quite the opposite. Hopping around rather madly on one foot, I proceeded to yelp in abject agony. Limping to our vine-fringed patio, I watched in detached horror as a dot of blood blossomed across the fabric of my shoe (technically I’d been wearing my mother’s shoe, but luckily she is not overly concerned with vanity). While my injury proved minor, my disgruntled toe has since made movement rather …..painful, and therefore quite a bit slower.

The Great Cinderblock Catastrophe of several days ago rendered me more fully cognizant of the perpetual frenzy of my everyday existence. Rarely is it that I pour the entirety of my focus into any one action or task; rather, I find myself contemplating some future task or action or trivial worry. Moments — indeed, the stuff that makes up the very substance of my reality — slip by unheeded (much in the same way the cinderblock slipped unheeded from my fingertips).

As I smeared mortar across my cob oven’s base, I was — quite literally — forced to slow down, to contemplate the patterns in the  gritty cement-like substance. Its dark grey smears held a myriad of swirls, the ebb and flow of its texture looked like water solidified. I hobbled back and forth from the wheelbarrow to the cob oven, unable to stay on my feet for long. Ultimately, the tasks I’d hoped to accomplish on Saturday went *completely* undone, and I found myself lying beside the blackberry bushes while icing my throbbing toe with a bag of frozen peas. I haven’t sat down and read a good portion of a book in quite some time, and — by virtue of my toe’s misfortune — I spent most of the day horizontal in the blackberry-tinted shade, enthralled in the lyricism of Mary Karr’s Cherry. 

While I don’t recommend dropping a cinderblock on your big toe, I *do* recommend taking the time to bask in the garden on a Summer day, to set your to to-do list by the wayside and remember your own humanity.

In my (abysmally late) post for week 4 of the Paulson internship, I’ll share a phenomenon that has become quite frequent during the Summer months in rural Ohio. This event — not a phenomenon at all, really, but an unfortunate side effect of possessing a wood stove — is generally marked by a subtle scratching that gradually builds to a crescendo. The sound of fluttering wings against thick glass reverberates throughout the household, and our calico cat sits stock still, eyes trained on the wood stove. If I’m home alone, I shy from the task of carefully gathering the bird in a towel and bringing her outside, as it’s quite hard to both open the doors of the stove and successfully catch the small creature. Yet my ineptitude in the art of bird-catching has its setbacks: all day the trapped bird flutters madly against the doors of the stove, unable to clamber back up the chimney, gazing longingly at the blurry living room without any means to enter it. Failure to catch the bird once the doors of the stove have opened, however, could result in a morbid outcome — namely, the death of the bird at the hands (or shall I say….. paws) of a hungry feline. If the bird flies freely from the stove, it often slams madly into windows, trying in vain to reach the green world beyond. In the past, birds have flown into the nooks and crannies of the house, settling down amidst pillows and blankets only to be discovered by a blanket-seeker some hours (or days!) later. I recall one sleepover when I reached into my closet to find a comforter and a small bluejay (truth be told I have no idea *what* sort of bird it was, but for the purposes of this post, I’ll dub her a bluejay) fluttered madly from the mass of blankets. Another time, I stumbled upon a very dead bird in the center of my parents’ room, a pile of feathers all that remained of my cat’s most recent feast. (And people believe if they keep their cats indoors, they won’t be able to destroy feathered creatures outside! ….Evidently, such is not always the case.)

Anyways, I digress. Recently, when I heard the tell-tale scratching the glass of the wood stove, I felt the usual sinking guilt: I, a human, could go languidly about my day while a small creature sat trapped inside a man-made prison. Yet — as any attempts to free the bird by myself could ultimately lead to its demise — I could only continue on with my human affairs, the fluttering of wings a weary background noise. When my mom arrived home, she carefully opened the wood stove while I reached out with a towel to pick up the small bird. I could feel her small body rise and fall with each breath, a gentle warmth cradled inside the towel. It felt strange, and slightly wrong, to hold a winged, undomesticated creature. An overstepping of my role as a human, an infringement upon the natural realm. I stepped onto the porch and slowly opened my palms. The bird hesitated for a mere moment, teetering on the brink of freedom, before flying off into the blue blue sky. Silently, I wished her well. 

This is *completely* unrelated, but attached is a photograph of my cob oven in progress. The foundation has been constructed! Stay tuned for the actual, uh, cob part of the oven.

To be quite frank, it has, all things considered, been a rather abysmal week. This past Monday, some of my material items were tragically stolen (that’s a story for another day, folks). After recognizing my foolishly intense dependence to my MacBook (as well as my favorite right shoe, which the thief also took from my clutches. I still have my left shoe. Strange times indeed…), I decided to take a stroll down my meandering country road. I stood at the road’s intersection, situated at the top of a gravelly hill, and observed the mismatched verdure of the valley.

Innumerable trees dotted the landscape, and neighbor’s strangely picturesque chicken coop looked like a miniature dwelling in a children’s toy box. The dying sun lent the leaves a golden tinge, a thousand shades of green flickering in the pre-dark gloom. Nature, I think, is too often idealized, revered for its beauty rather than its thereness — its ability to continue growing and thriving in new forms, even in the midst of apparent chaos. Rip up a plant and wayward seeds will take root in its wake. Mow a field yet the grass still continues to stretch for sunlight, not stymied even by the mower’s oppressive blade. Lose a MacBook and… well… a new one will likely *not* grow to take its place. Perhaps this comparatively small misfortune was a good lesson for me, in the end — a reminder not to become overly reliant on a mere a piece of technology… (and right shoes! Who needs ’em, anyways?)

Last Friday, I slept outside in one of the tree-lined locations which has become a regular haunt of mine. The sky that night was eerily clear, affording me full view of the star-speckles heavens — the constellations I regrettably have yet to learn. While feeling the rocky ground against my back was not ideal in the realm of comfort, it did remind me of my own relationship to nature as a human being who is, in fact, part of the earth’s larger ecology. How sad that I’ve been conditioned to slumber in my own pillow-strewn bed…

I’ve also begun the bush-clearing foundational stage of cob oven building. Its construction is not *yet* interesting enough, I’ve decided, to warrant an anecdotal inclusion in this post. But stay tuned, dear reader, for soon I have no doubt this clay-straw-brick structure will prove very fascinating indeed!

(….Thank you ever so kindly for suffering through this parenthetically-dense post. Sometimes one is simply in the mood for a good parenthetical….)

Last Wednesday, as I meandered to my “sit spot^*1” — a tree-lined cliff-edge on a friend’s land, a stone’s throw from their vegetable garden — I hurriedly adjusted my earbuds, flipping through a friend’s Spotify playlist in search of some rad tunes. I generally enjoy listening to a pleasant beat while in transit, and I found myself dancing as I made my way up the graveling road.

Strolling past a fellow country dweller’s front yard, I caught a glimmer of movement: my neighbor Janalee, her expression tense as she mowed her lawn in the mid-June heat.  I couldn’t hear the lawnmower (the aforementioned ‘rad tunes’ were, of course, quite bopping) and it occurred to me how far apart my neighbor and I were even in such close proximity — separated not by distance, but rather by awareness. Engrossed in the lawnmower’s hubbub, she kept her eyes trained on grass trimming, and I slunk past, ghost-like in the 5 o’clock sun. Perturbed, I stuffed my headphones into my backpack, pressed pause on the “Glass Animals” single I’d been jiving to.

I was met not with an absence of sound, but rather a symphony chaotic and beautiful. The lawnmower’s growl, the chatter of an unknown bird^*2, the croon of the wind. Gravel crunching underfoot.  Rustling leaves. Countless critters scurrying to and fro in the swaying grass. An ecosystem of which, I — heedless music listener, gravel stomper — am a part. An ecosystem which I’d been ignoring.

Conditioned by prevailing capitalistic society, I realized I feel (or so I realized post-earbud removal) an unceasing desire to consume: media, music, knowledge, entertainment, food, affection, experiences. Moments of silence — of introspection or calmness or solitude, moments of just being — are vastly underrated. How often do I find myself pausing in my moments of transit to (NO, I am *not* about to employ the silly cliche of  ‘stopping to smell the roses’) contemplate an army of ants toting crumbs along a sidewalk? A strand of thistle on the roadside? The dull red glare of sunlight in a mud puddle? Rather than recognizing nature intentionally (as in, murmuring to myself “okay, Lily, we shall now appreciate this tuft of grass”), I’d like to make my awareness of bugs and briars and passing clouds habitual — something as subconscious as itching a particularly itchy spot on my foot. Perhaps that was a strange analogy.

Yes, I’ll continue dancing to my rad bopping tunes. But I’ll also dance (at least inwardly) to the wild, wild cacophony of a June afternoon.

While the first week of the internship draws to a close, I’ve found myself more aware of day-to-day nature. As someone fortunate to live in close proximity to a vast array of flora and fauna, I fear I had begun to view the natural world as mere backdrop — as nothing more than an aesthetically pleasing side attraction. I’d go outside, sure, but not purely for the purpose of going outside; instead, I’d lie in the garden while reading, while eating lunch, while procrastinating an unwanted assignment from Zoom University. I’d go outside to exercise or write poetry or feed the sheep. For my heedless pre-Paulson self, the Great Outdoors existed as a place in the same way the laundry room or pantry functions as a place — as a means to an end. I didn’t venture out into the world beyond my windowpane purely for the purpose of recognizing and appreciating that outside space. My thoughts were constantly elsewhere, and I was unaware of the potency of moss covered logs or scattered pebbles or sprouting snow peas plants.

Henceforth, I’ll endeavor to take time each day to simply exist in nature sans distraction.  I don’t merely want to bask in the beauty of nature cultivated for the human eye; yes, the flowers in the driveway may be pleasing to the onlooker, but I hope to recognize the sublime in the conventionally ‘unbeautiful’ as well. Bugs swarming decaying plantlife. Compost as it ages into soil. Salamanders lurking beneath stream bed stones. These seemingly small aspects of the natural world play a vital role in its ecology, and I want to realize the potency of the minute, the overlooked.

While lying in the garden near the raspberries bushes this week, the 4 pm sun a warm blur in the periwinkle sky, I realized how much I take simple things — like weather — for granted. The sunlight on my skin felt like some sort of magic, and I fleetingly imagined what it might be like to photosynthesis. Rather than simply basking in the June sun, I’d like to explore and unpack the way weather evokes certain moods or feelings. How does my sense of being morph as the sky sizzles, a pre-thunderstorm gloom etching itself across the heavens? Why does rain on a metal rooftop make me feel more balanced, more at ease? Do I feel different lying in my garden beneath a midnight moon rather than the afternoon sun?  During these 6 weeks (and ideally beyond!) I plant to center myself in nature through the written word as well as though visual art, exploring and unpacking my weather-inspired feelings by way of graphite to page. I concede that is phrased in a rather vague way… we’ll, uh, just see what happens!

greetings, oh fellow environmentally-inclined peers

I live on a small sheep farm in rural Appalachia (Athens, Ohio to be exact). My family tends to a garden teeming with a vast array of vegetables (or more accurately, my *parents* do the tending; I myself generally “harvest” which really means “eat the vegetables” ….but I digress). On our farm, several ducks stroll through the apple orchard, a flock of chickens squawk at ungodly hours of the night, and our black lab — Ellie — runs haphazardly through the beds of kale. I enjoy taking naps in the garden on Summer afternoons, often using a long, boring book as a makeshift pillow. When conscious, I dabble in running, biking, making elaborate omelets from duck eggs and observing the twitter accounts of my favorite poets. Occasionally, I unicycle down the meandering dusty road near my house. Often, I remove birds trapped in our wood stove (they fly in through the chimney… it’s quite unfortunate). Since my internet functions at the pace of dying, elderly snail, I generally read or simply stare at walls rather than *sigh* consume online entertainment, which has left me tragically out of the loop in regards to ….Everything.

Another Fun and Exciting Fact which I tried to incorporate into the above paragraph but to no avail: my family uses a composting toilet!! it’s really excellent, would recommend.

At Wellesley, I’m a class of 2022 Environmental Studies/English major who is thoroughly incompetent in the realm of STEM. You may have seen me on the stage during WCT’s Indecent as a very passionate rabbi, on the frisbee field valiantly attempting (and epically failing) to play frisbee, or reciting poetry as part of Wellesley’s CUPSI team. Or perhaps you have seen me eating a sandwich in the English department hallway, as I am wont to do.