Feeling Minnesota

Well, I'm back sampling again. This summer hasn't gone nearly the way I had hoped. There have been plenty of positives, but I haven't been able to write the stories I wanted to write or travel as much as I wanted. However, I've gotten more tent nights this summer than I have probably gotten in the last three years combined. I am now bound to set a proportion of nights per year devoted to camping, and I will camp them.

It seems as though I've been camping for a majority of the last month. It started with a backpacking trip to norhtern Minnesota with Dan. It was nothing extravagant, but it was the perfect trip at the perfect time. The weather couldn't have been more varied or better, the campsites were spectacular, and the scenery was amazing. Even though it was only a three-nighter, it was very healing for me. At the beginning of it, I felt like I'd been cut off from the world. I've always taken pride in the fact that Nature is a very large part of who I am and how connected to the world I've felt. However, the wilderness, at first, seemed too large and alien. I've never felt that before, and it struck me--hard. I was completely taken aback by my sense of isolation. I'm a master's student in ecology for Christ's sake! I spend about three months a year doing nothing else but walking around old-growth forests looking at plants! What the hell!? Then I realized that it was the way I have been spending time in the woods. Any more, I'm always in a hurry to get the sampling done--to make the deadline, to get away from my undergrads, etc. Then I am busy with classes, data analysis, and everything else for the rest of the year. My isolation from the wild has led to my feeling isolated from the rest of the world, as well. That's not a happy thing. When we left the campsite on the last morning there, it felt like something in me broke.

Since then, I've taken a different approach to my sampling. Fortunately, and unfortunately, I'm sampling by myself for this run. Also, I take the time now and again to just sit and watch and think. I just periodically stop to take it all in.

I spent most of the following two weeks camping at one of my sites. I feel much better now.

And I will write those stories.

Today's note:
Walking is the rhythm of thought. Our brains evolved while walking, not driving or sitting on the couch watching tv.

Discuss amongst yourselves.