Nature has a really funny way of speaking to us. I think back on our Salt Creek canoeing adventure, and I can’t help but remember the way we were being attacked by nature. Maybe it was our overconfidence in thinking that we had a grasp on our surroundings, then nature tells us that we don’t. For instance, we reach the end of our canoe trip and we all have to turn around now. Sarah, Resie and I decided that if we wanted to get the most of this trip, we would have to stay back and paddle slower, so that we would be better able to take in our surroundings without the disruption of our fellow classmates. So, this means that we were the first canoe to turn around, and both Sarah and Resie did an amazing job turning our little canoe in the water.
Then it happens, “Oh no! Oh no!” is all we hear from Sarah, who is guiding the front of the canoe and before we know it the three of us are eating fresh mangroves for a little snack out on the water. Once we got through the nature in the form of a mangrove knocking down our confidence and reminding us that we were merely visitors in their home, we laughed hysterically and started picking pieces of leaves out of our hair.
“That was an adventure!” I exclaimed once we were in the clear. The three of us continued to laugh as we let other canoes advance ahead of us. “What did we learn today ladies?” I asked. “That mangroves are dangerous.” Sarah answers. Resie laughing behind me, “that was so funny, that tree came out of nowhere!” she says. I will never forget this little trip taken up Salt Creek and the way that I learned to find nature everywhere, not just in a forest or a state park that is reserved for such a thing as “wilderness” or “nature.” These are both things that can be found in our everyday lives, looking out into our backyards or even into a retention pond nearby. Nature is not elusive one bit, we see it everyday mixed into what we have made it. It may contain the things that we have so carelessly let fall by the wayside, but nature is all around us nonetheless.
