Duck named Pete

The duck is in the pond! I've named him Silvester, but my boyfriend think he's more like a Pete. The grass is slightly longer and there is a stick in the pond that could be mistaken for a snake. All else seems unchanged. Right before dark, the pond reflects a building on campus. A red structure is a blurry ghost on the surface of the water. Ryan, my boyfriend, says, "Give me the camera--I am going to capture nature," as though we were trapping a lightning bug in a jar. He snaps some pictures of the birds hopping around. Earlier he was convinced that one was staring at him. I am reminded of the day he said, You want to be a bird don't you, and think to myself yes. Perhaps I am another version of that bird exploring the weekend's buildup of whiskers on his face: cheeks covered in red and brown. The duck lets out a sharp quack! after I am done chasing his image in circles as he swims. He dips his head underwater, nuzzling. As he moves, the water follows in a triangular path like the shape of his tail feathers. C'mon, it's you and me, Pete, do something," Ryan says, wishing for a spectacle. When the duck moves, he says, See, told you his name was Pete, insinuating that he's got the correct name for the duck. Kids riding bikes break the silence and run towards the duck in exitement that is excrutiating to my ears. I notice that they have means to harass and control poor Pete. A girl calls it ducky, and wants to jump in after it. She then asks why small ducks are yellow, but she's thinking of baby chics. Always a need to call an animal our own, to disturb the one that travels alone peacefully among its own triangle. Always a need to name an animal to identify a spec of commonality and communicate.

Frick Park Reflections

One thing I have come to love about Pittsburgh is the ability to retreat into nature while remaining in the city. On Saturday, my boyfriend and I walked from my apartment building on Murray Avenue to Frick Park's entrance on Beechwood Blvd, into vast fields and open sky. I thought the newly cut grass would be screaming with bugs, but we laid there relatively undisturbed. We kicked the soccer ball around for awhile (soccer is a passion for both of us), and then laid in the sun. There was a singular dandelion in front of me, maybe the only one that survived the mower's blade on this hillside. Speaking of dandelion's, I began reading Nancy Gift's A Weed by Any Other Name, and I came across the passage Laura formerly mentioned in class. Gift paraphrased Richard Louv: "he reminds us that immersing oursevles in wild spaces fosters creativity, the sense of place, and the confidence that we need as adults" (xii). For me, wild speaks to thinking outside of the box. It is not, or should not always be assigned negative connotations. Paying attention to everything that grows around us can certainly maintain a knowledge of place, history, origin and heritage of a plant and/or person. Confidence is an intriguing concept, but I agree that plants instill confidence. I ponder my childhood: I remember planting pumpkins when I was a child in a plot in my neighbor's yard. Perhaps we stopped doing this because of age and other activities, but doing so had fostered not only the growth of a living thing, but human relationships as well, including my parents, siblings, and neighbor. Since then, I feel that I have lost the ability to grow a thing, that confidence, and also the space and permission; we barely speak to our neighbor anymore. Planting a living thing teaches responsibility, nurturing, hard work and respect for the environment.

Chatham Pond

Today I laid on the hill behind the pond on Chatham's campus. This is the place I will make a weekly visit to and write about. The following are my thoughts from earlier: Grass as long as my fingers. A tree that looks as though it's been skinned to the smooth grey underneath. There are white circular flowers that remind me of a woman's sheer blouse. On this shaded hillside, trees and bushes only let a small amount of light shine through, but no spec of this area is left untouched; it is evenly greened. I search the grass for a four leaf clover, but no luck today. There is a duck by th epond, the kind my father collected in figurines and paintings, the kind with a patch of dark green and antique brown feathers. The pond water is cloudy, muddy, as dark as fear. Yet, bright orange fish swim around in lines and cirlces. The duck is just sitting there on the edge waiting. For what? I wonder. For solitude. For a companion. For a piece of bread like amusement park ducks. Tree branches hang over the water as if the old tree no longer wants the weight on its bark, or as if they were just that thirsty waiting for the rain. The fountain spurts out water which is the only sound, aside from the chirping birds. It creates a movement that groups stray leaves together. Blocking some of my view is a bush that seems like it might be dying, brown bleeding on the tips. Its appendages stick out in all different directions like a boy's hair in the morning. I'm not sure why, but there are large grey stones placed around the pond in a section of mulch. I suppose this is mere decoration, but who needs that? Now that the black squirell is gone, several birds land on the ground moving their necks like the arrow of a clock. Tic-toc. A lone red-bellied bird hops too and fro, looking...for food? The duck is still sitting there. I wonder if I'll see him next time, or if he will have taken the plunge into the murky water.

Nature & Environmental Writing

I am a beginner to blogging, which has now been initiated by the Nature and Environmental Writing course I am taking for Chatham University's MFA program. I have often thought about how one's environment shapes her character. For instance, I grew up in the Poconos, where I spent a lot of time being active in the outdoors. My father hunts deer, primarily, and I have often contemplated the morals of this act. He also grew up on a farm, which I know very little about, except that there are right and wrong ways to care for cows. Many of my family members fish; this is something my brother still loves to do as a hobby, but I have not done so for a very long time. Wen I was young, my brother and I often hiked and explored, and my mother truly loves buying and planting flowers to make her house presentable. I recall several chores that I was not particularly fond of, including sifting dirt and picking up sticks. Part of the environmental movement includes paying attention to the creation of suburb, that is, using chemicals, pesticides, making a house look "pretty." There are several images that I distincly love and remember from the house I grew up in, which are the mint leaves growing on the hillside and the apple tree that we have never eaten from. This imagery often appears in my poetry, where I draw parallels and create metaphors. It is my hope that participating in this class will help me further explore natural landscapes and interpret my own internal landscape/reasons for writing. I feel that I will be challenged most when asked to write nonfiction essays or works of fiction, since these are not the primary genres that I practice.