Environmental/Nature Writing Assignment

Here's a paper I just wrote. The assignment was "Sensory Impressions". We had to go out into nature and commune. Eyes closed for 10 minutes. All comments are welcome, except negative ones. Because I really just want to be told how awesome I am.




AJ Bell
Sensory Impressions
WRTG 4080

Quaking Winds

I quietly attempt to find a spot resembling the one in my head, or at least one filling a certain set of requirements. It's cooler today, I'll need sunshine, but not too much, not a complete clearing. Because trees directly overhead are also needed, like front row seats at the symphony. I pass a couple of prospects. I need more than just sunshine: soft ground cover, minimal amount of cattle remnants, mixed with an absolute absence of ants. This one should do, the degree of slope might even improve my comfort. Yes, this will do nicely. The light warms my skin as I settle in, muscles relaxing, molding to the ground. Now I wait, eyes shut. Wait, for the forest's breath to come. . . so it can sing.
The first wave approaches, breaking quietly. Initially it's as though I've just stopped talking, and in this new stillness a distant waterfall joins the conversation. But a water fall would speak in one tone, this sound is building. Steadily it grows, moving closer, louder as more aspen leaves join in. The ringing rustle reaches the leaves directly above, and the light outside my eyelids begins to flash yellow and orange. Then something unexpected, different, new. I've been here before. Sat among the aspens as the wind made them sing. I knew their song. I intentionally came today, to this spot to hear it. But today more of me joins in. Perhaps it's because today I closed my eyes, closed off that sense that others came alive. Today I don't see the trees, their little green leaves dancing in wind and light. I feel them. Today though still I feel movement, as sensation of swirling wind, sound of swaying trees cause my muscles to lightly contract and release in concentric waves across my body.
Before I laid down I wondered how long consciousness would last, how long I could lay peacefully with my eyes closed before sleep took me. The answer never came, only suspicions. Curiously, my eyes opened on their own, I quickly shut them again, but there was a change. I must have slipped away because as another breeze came in the leaves dance, but not the light. I tip my head back to gaze at the sun. It's now smiling back with no trees in its grin. The wind has changed to, not its sound, not its motion, but its attitude. Instead of rocking me in waves, the breeze comes in soft. It hits my face and causes a coolness to spread across my skin. I extend into this touch as into a lover's kiss. It kisses my arm.
That arm later receives another sensation, one potentially less friendly. Not wanting to acknowledge my first reaction, I hold as still as possible just in case it was only the brushing of grass. Unfortunately movement continues. They've found me. I lift up my arm to flick their little black and red bodies off into the void. A couple more flicks, a brush here, there, and I sync back in. I wonder if there are any woodpeckers around, there normally are. As if he heard my thoughts, drumming begins, pause, more hollow drumming. My thoughts deepen, and I fancy that he felt me missing him; drummed out to tell me he did. Have wind and trees, he and I have become one? I smile at my own profoundness and proposed power. But I soon question this. Perhaps my ears dulled by a sinus infection only caught his first drummings enough for me to subconsciously think “woodpecker”. Fully registering “woodpecker” only after his second set began. This doubt couples with the coolness which no longer softly spreads because it has conquered, add to this one of Grandpa's cows deciding to move through the area bellering all the way. Time's up. I send a couple more ants on there way as I get up. Then stalk off, suddenly self-conscious. When did my feet and jeans get so loud?