Nature

There is something curious about sitting in a tree. Bright sunny days with only a little wind are perfect opportunities to read a book while in a tree. People don't usually look up and see you there, but you have every opportunity to look at them. It is very curious to observe the goings-on on a college campus, by the parking lots and dorms. Trees offer protection for the spy within as you can easily watch who comes and goes from buildings or cars. They don't offer much protection from the wind, but it is definitely worth it to find a good tree and take to climbing it. A good tree is one that has a place to set your book while you climb, low enough branches to pull yourself up with, and at least some sort of footholds for the scramble upwards. Once you're up in the tree, find a good spot to sit. Usually this is best if there is a little indent for a seat with your back against a branch. Maybe another branch to put your feet on too. Now sit back and relax. Isn't that nice? To find a good tree on campus took a little while because you have to survey each tree, by walking around the base of them. Don't lose heart, you'll find a good one. The one I found has a perfect seat, and it's not very high off the ground. It has a good base, and sturdy backrests and a footrest too. My guess is that no one really realized I was there, even though I wasn't wearing camo or something to really blend into the tree. Sitting in this tree while reading brings back such memories.

I took piano lessons from when I was five through senior year of highschool. My sister and I had our lessons at our teacher's house, and her house was right next to a park. While Kiera was in lessons, I would go play at the park, on the the playground, or play catch with my dad, or (fancy that) climb a tree and read. There was the absolute perfect tree in this park. It had big gnarly branches and wonderful footholds; it was the easiest tree to climb, even with a book in hand. I would climb up til I reached the perfect sitting branch, and would lean back against the trunk of the tree. Then out came the book and the reading started. I never wanted to get down from the tree to go into lessons when my sister was done; it was just the perfect place to be.

I'm not sure what it is about reading in a tree, but it makes the reading so much more enjoyable to me. I can read in my house on my couch, or on my bed, or anywhere else, but to be fully immersed in nature by sitting in a tree just has a different feel to it. It's a wonderful experience and I recommend that everyone should try it at least once before writing me off as a "weirdo" or something because I read in trees. Really, go out and try it. You might find what I did. It's very calming and soothing to feel the wind and the branches moving and hear the leaves rustling very close to your head. To see bird's nests at close proximity and feel the bark under your hands as you climb...there's just nothing like it. God made the trees for our enjoyment. Climbing them is a must.

To go back to the tree in the park at my piano lessons. Sometime in middle or highschool, I'm not sure which, there was a huge storm. Lightening and thunder and the whole works. For some reason that I don't understand, that perfect tree was struck by lightening. It was hit at the sitting spot, and the next time I went to the park, I saw that the spot was gone. There was no more reason to try to climb the tree, even though the base of it was still there to a decent height, because the tree was gone after that point. I was devastated. There was to be no more climbing, no more reading in that perfect tree. After that, for piano lessons, I just went to them and left. I never really went into the park again, for lack of time and for that tree being struck down. No longer did Kiera and I have the tree that we always sat in and played in and read in.

It's been a long time since I sat and read in a tree. Since that tree was hit by lightening, I have only done this twice. Once a couple of years ago in highschool when I climbed the great big tree in our front yard in the summer, and once in college. It was this last time that I realized how much I missed being able to sit by myself and enjoy nature and all that comes with it. It does get somewhat chilly if there is wind, especially if you're pretty high up, but even if just for an hour, doing this really has an impact. You learn things when you're in a tree. Especially if you're up pretty high. You learn what it is like to look down over the world. To see things from a different perspective. You learn what other people do when they think no one is watching because they don't know you're in the tree. You see people dancing alone on their way across campus. You see people together laughing so hard they're almost falling over. All this from a vantage point where no one can see you. Or at least they don't notice you, even if you are pretty visible. This is almost spiritual, in a sense, because maybe this is what it is like for God. At least a little bit. To be able to see a big expanse of space, and laugh with those who are laughing, and dance with those who are dancing, and share in their happiness whether or not they really know that you're there. Maybe this is why God created trees, and people with a desire to climb them. To get a glimpse of what God sees. To understand the beauty of the world. Maybe.

Walden: Solitude

I really enjoyed reading this chapter of Walden. Thoreau's writing style is still easy to read, and I find the subject matter really interesting. I especially found the section on page 898 when Thoreau was talking about his pleasantest hours intriguing. He stated that he was happiest when there were long rain storms in the afternoons of spring and fall. He enjoyed being confined to the house and listening to the "ceaseless roar and pelting". This is interesting because many people get annoyed with rainstorms, especially farmers when the storms mean they can't get to their crops. Thoreau didn't seem to mind that, though.

I really enjoy rainstorms as well, and staying inside watching movies and baking and doing the like. I enjoy them most, however, because I am with other people. I'm not sure I would enjoy them if I was by myself. Many people don't really like being alone like Thoreau did, and I am one of them. Maybe Thoreau was an introvert because he enjoyed his time alone so much. I think people who are normally extroverts, like myself, and are energized by being around people would have a much harder time with the solitude Thoreau experienced. There is something to be said for time alone, though, and maybe since we're coming into spring and going to be getting rainstorms, we will be able to enjoy them in the solitude of our homes by ourselves.

Walden: Economy

I actually really enjoyed reading Thoreau's Economy chapter of Walden. It was written in a way that was much easier to understand and comprehend quickly, where as reading Emerson was more difficult. I definitely felt like I could understand Thoreau's meaning in his writing much more easily. However, there was one section that really caught me in this chapter. It's right at the end of the chapter, on page 885. Thoreau states,

"Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring him forever. One would say that even the prophets and redeemers had rather consoled the fears than confirmed the hopes of man. There is nowhere recorded a simple and irrepressible satisfactions with the gift of life, any memorable praise of God."

This really struck me. Throughout the chapter, and in many writings of this time, spirituality is given a very high importance. One of the reasons Thoreau lived in the wilderness alone was to experience the spirituality in nature. It is very curious to me then, that he would make such a harsh statement about God, how our hymns curse Him, and no one has ever really given memorable praise to Him. Has no one ever then actually experienced true life and therefore cannot adequately thank God for it? Or is God not actually an aspect of spirituality; only through nature do we find spirituality? Does our praise really curse God? It raised a lot of questions in my mind; I just found this passage very interesting because of the earlier emphasis of spirituality in Thoreau's writing. It definitely brings the question of Thoreau's definition of spirituality to my mind. Maybe others had similar or different questions or possibly answers to the questions I raised, I don't know. I do know that it's very interesting to think about.

James Fenimore Cooper

This excerpt from The Last of the Mohicans was a very interesting one. I have never had the opportunity before to read this story or see the movie, and I think I might now just because I thought this chapter was very good. Cooper did a very wonderful job describing both Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook both in physical appearance and the way they interacted with each other. The physical description Cooper gave was very adequate to be able to paint a good picture in my head of the scene, and be able to see what the two men looked like. Bumppo was described as your stereotypical Englishman, while Chingachgook was described as your stereotypical "noble savage", if you will. It is very interesting to see, however, that they don't really fit these stereotypes. They have a camaraderie, a friendship, that is usually quite unheard of during this time between Indians and white men. This chapter was mainly dialogue between the two men, not really any action until the last part when the deer was killed, but it was a very intriguing dialogue. The two men were having a conversation about the history of their peoples, and it had fairly reached the point of an argument, but both men argued very eloquently. It was this fact that was really interesting to me, and kept me reading, because not very often do you see an argument between two completely different people on a heated subject still be able to hold the friendship in balance. That says a lot about the characters of these two men, and really makes me want to know the rest of the story.

Washington Irving-Rip Van Winkle

I really enjoyed reading Rip Van Winkle. I have heard of it many times in my life but never seen the movie or read the story, so it was nice to finally be able to see what it's about. I thought t was a very well written short story, and it kept me turning pages. It was definitely interesting to see what he thought about his wife in the story. She was a big nagger, and I understand the feeling of being oppressed by such a person, as Rip was. But later in the story when he came back after 20 years, he was very happy to hear that his wife was dead. As annoying as she may have been, was there not even a bit of remorse that his companion in marriage for so long was dead? He didn't seem to think at all of the effects that may have had on his children too, for they believed he had shot himself in the woods and was dead. And then their mom died too. That would be a very hard thing to deal with, and yet there was no mention of any possible remorse for that from Rip. He was just happy that he had gotten out of his "petticoat government" and had "got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony". I was fairly amazed that someone wasn't saddened in the least by the death of a family member, no matter how obnoxious she had been.

Phillis Wheatley

I was really impressed with this lady's ability to write poetry. I was amazed that she was a slave, and yet was able to write like this and speak multiple languages and have her poems published all while she was younger than 20 years old. This is amazing in itself, because I'm 18, and what kind of things am I capable of writing? Certainly not anything as good as this. Wheatley definitely knows the right words to use and writes very well. I really thought the poem on the death of the reverend was really good. It emphasized the fact that even though death separates us from people here on earth, it's not the final thing. It was very eloquently expressed that the reverend was a very respected man in his city and would be missed terribly; however, it was also expressed that the city and the people in it were joyful at the prospect of being with the reverend again because death isn't the end. I really enjoyed reading this poem, especially when she said that Christ is an "impartial savior". Everyone has the opportunity to be saved, and to know that death isn't the end. The salvation is for everyone, of any race, and I think this was very well-put by Wheatley.

Equiano

I found the reading about Equiano to be quite interesting and enjoyable. It was a very compelling read, and I found myself wanting to know what was going to happen next. I thought it was extremely unfortunate that he had to experience the severe changes in his condition so frequently throughout his life, because he would go from a relatively good situation to a purely awful one by being sold to someone else. This seemed to happen to him a lot, and it would be really difficult to live like he did.

I also thought it was very interesting that Equiano spoke so much about how he thought the white men had "magic". It was such a mystical land and people to him, and in today's day we hardly ever think about how Americans really appeared back then. We had the ability to use boats, and to stop them with anchors; we were also able to ride horses as a mode of transportation. These and many other things seem so natural to us, but were incredibly foreign to the slaves that had been transported to America. I never really stopped to think about how our way of living would be viewed by the Africans who were forced to come here, so it is really intriguing to read about their views on our way of life.