being a part of nature
Since that day in August, Rosa and I have experienced a lot of nature together. I picked her name, Rosa, because she is so soft and sweet like a flower and her dark brown color makes me think of her as Hispanic. I have so many memories of Rosa. It is hard to focus on a few. Rosa has helped strengthen my quieter connections with nature. She allows me to be in nature by just observing.
We tend to go to Waller Creek close to the Elizabeth Ney Museum or to the Intramural Fields by my house. Once we get to our destination, I let her off her leash and her whole personality changes. She becomes this wild, silly retriever who races about with her tail whirling behind her. As I walk and visually take in nature, she sniffs in nature. A dog's sense of smell is a whole other sensation for them. I have tried to understand the joy a dog must receive from smelling. I think of the things she could smell and what those smells mean to her. A dog's smell vocabulary is thousands of times greater than our own. This is Rosa's own private experience, her "Zen" with nature. Humans tend to think we know everything compared to our small animal friends, but smelling the details of the earth beneath your feet is something I will never know. Instead, I watch Rosa and her reactions as her nose follows the earth. I watch birds and squirrels tease her, so she will chase them back into the sky and trees. I watch Rosa soak her paws in the dirty water. "In vacant or in pensive mood," I allow my mind to drift through the tops of the trees that "flash upon my inward eye, which is the bliss of solitue" (Wordsworth 394). I follow Rosa down the stream. It becomes therapeutic and I remember to breathe. I am not looking at my watch; I'm watching Rosa chomp a stick apart.
These experiences I have described seem so small and simple, but they are connections that make life worth living. These moments with Rosa and nature keep me going to work and school, even when I am exhausted and frustrated. Nature and Rosa give back to me what the rest of the world seems to constantly drain from me. I can't imagine my life without Rosa because it would be bland and empty. This is how the world would be without nature. Nature, like Rosa, gives a me a place to retreat, a means to be spirtually nourished, and a desire for a life more meaningful. "To (me) fair works did Nature link/ The human soul that through me ran; and much it grieved my heart to think what man has made of man" (Wordsworth 396). I am grateful to have an natural soul keeping me connected to nature. I hope that the world can see and feel the maginificence of nature and how we are connected to it even though we have strayed so far from it.