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Announcements of Change

Posted on by under Liz, Uncategorized

On Sunday, I attended perhaps my town’s first ever Pride March which was also a Black Lives Matter Peaceful Protest. I journeyed past my sit spot on my way there. I really appreciated at the very beginning of this internship that there was an explicit message sent to all of us that we do not exist in a vacuum and, quite frankly, neither does our ecosystem. While I was at the event, I was painfully aware of how it was mostly young people and a very small portion of my town. There have been many unexpected changes in all our lives over the last several months. I wonder why many of us are not more suited for change. Nature changes all the time, so why can’t, why don’t we? On my way back, I passed a river and saw this magnificent bird:

According to a handful of Wellesley students, she is a Great Blue Heron. I had the good fortune of continuing to explore new places and try new things this week. I wander some woods and made some nature art. I learned about bugs and worked on writing a letter to my fellow town residents. Also this week, Wellesley announced official plans, the course browser which is very new came out, I had a meeting about working on planning training for OMs which starts in a few days and my triplet siblings are in very different situations than I am. So there’s been a lot to take in and lots of change. There was a thunderstorm last night which I’m sure the outside world appreciated. When I was walking in the woods, it reminded me of a time, months and months ago, when I walked around the lake at Wellesley. Then sure enough, these woods also enclosed a lake. It was nice to pretend to be back.

“Up on the hill across the blue lake
That’s where I had my first heart break
                                        I still remember how it all changed…”

The Possibilities, Oh The Possibilities!

Posted on by under Liz, Uncategorized

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
‘Til it’s gone
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot

…

They took all the trees
Put them in a tree museum
And they charged all the people
A dollar and a half to see ’em

-Joni Mitchell, 1970

 

There was a post going around Facebook that was satirizing the last few weeks with photos of kids’ faces in the future in shock upon finding out that there is a different history unit for every week in 2020. Speaking of history, there have been many comparisons made in the news between this year and 50 years ago. Black Lives Matter today is mirrored by the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panthers then. The fight against Climate Change today is mirrored by the Environmental Movement then. Earth Day reached its 50th Anniversary year as well as the above song: Big Yellow Taxi.

I chose this song because not only does it connect to this 50 year span of time but also alludes to curated nature (trees in a tree museum…). When our group first met on Monday, someone (feel free to let me know!) said the phrase curated nature and it has stuck with me ever since. It made me realize that most of the nature I am thrilled to explore over the course of the program is very much in fact curated. The landscaping around one of the public beaches in town (pictured above) was completely redesigned a handful of years ago, although there was an emphasis on making it more natural, it was still “made”. The cemetery where I spent a good while watching a groundhog scamper by, listening to birds chirping, watching spiders crawl on the ground and a fight between a small bird (stay tuned for the species) and a Canadian Goose: it is curated Suburban nature (pictured above). The pond in the middle is man-made (I believe, I will confirm). The rosebushes along my walk to a nearby park were planted by the property owner and the pile of leaves from the sandcherry shrub was thanks to curating nature within my family’s own backyard. It was interesting to let the phrase color my thoughts and interactions with my environment outside this week.

…

One of the first assignments we had this week was: Backyard Nature Almanac Project, Activity #1: Exploring your Place. As I wandered virtually in the southwest section of Connecticut, I realized there were many state parks, reservoirs and a state forest that didn’t ring any bells for me. I have lived in my town for two decades now besides for the time I’ve spent in Wellesley. I plan to visit one of them this coming week and hope to observe some not curated nature.

…

The title of this post is an allusion to the flexibility and openness of the Paulson Internship Program Summer 2020. While I would have loved to be on campus and exploring Wellesley, I am eager to take full advantage of this opportunity in front of me to obtain an immense knowledge of the ecology that’s been around me my entire life and to use this as a platform to educate others about and fight climate change. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to spend so much time outside and hope to spend even more time out there next week.

hello!

Posted on by under Uncategorized

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.

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