At the beginning of the year I (Evan) decided to start taking a short walk outside each day during work. Since most of my day is spent in a chair or in a car, it’s nice to get out, stretch the legs, and breath fresh air for a few minutes. It does me good to look at something other than screens and cubicle walls.
During one of these first walks, I had the idea to snap a photo of a particular part of my walk that leads behind a grove of conifers and sidles up next to a small urban stream. Soon after I decided to come back the next month, and the next, to repeat the photo. I wanted to see how the landscape changed month after month and if there would be any interesting occurrences in that regard.
I finished taking my last picture in November of 2023, having collected my years’ worth of data. Time to look at the pictures!
As you might imagine there wasn’t anything extremely surprising. The pale, dried grass and bare twigs of January and February gave way to a stronger tint of green in the lawn for March. In April the vibrancy of the grass increased one hundred-fold and buds on nearby bushes and trees began to show. In May there was again a vast change as bare branches filled with fresh leaves, an explosion of life. June and July saw the greens turn darker, and then August and September saw a blush of yellow as the dry, hot days of summer stretched on. Finally, in October, the sky gray as I photographed it, the trees had turned orange and yellow and the vegetation on the creek bank was dead and brown. In the final photo at the end of November the conifer trees had already turned their flame orange and dropped their needles, and the grass was littered with them and the dried leaves of the deciduous trees.
This glorious cycle happens every year, has for thousands of years, and will hopefully for long into the future. I started taking these pictures because I have been feeling disconnected from nature this past year. The feeling is like having an old friend to which you haven’t talked in a very long time. Then one day you wake up to realize you wish you’d kept in touch more. The pictures, and the walks, gave me a small way to remain “in” nature in a way while viewing the process of the constant cycle of death and renewal.
It is said in conservation that one must love nature first, then conserving it naturally follows. And what better way to learn to love nature than to spend time in it. That is why this coming year (2024) I am embarking on a quest to spend one hundred hours in nature, preferably alone in contemplation, and preferably in the woods which is my chosen place to solitude. Numerous studies and anecdotal accounts abound on the health benefits, both psychologically and physiologically, of spending time outdoors. Famous author Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.”
Especially in this time of cold weather, world crises that are hard to digest, and personal worries, perhaps some more time in nature would be good for you also. In our ever-changing world and life nature is still there, constantly going through the same old cycles, the predictability comforting in a way. So, if you haven’t yet done so, I challenge you to fall in love with nature this year and see where it takes you.