It's 4:30, and the sky is dark, my street is nearly pitch black minus the lit up christmas icicles, and I'm just sitting on my front steps staring up at the sky. How many nights have I not even come outside because what's going on inside is far more pressing. Homework, chores, SAT prep, taking care of the dogs, the list goes on and on. But for one night, I decided that I'd spend an evening experiencing nature. Emerson once said, "the stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence." It's so overwhelming to sit beneath the stars...everytime I do, I feel this immense sense of grandeur, yet at the same time, I feel very small. I mean here I am on these steps with thoughts racing through my head about homework and just life in general, and then there are these itsie bitsie stars staring overhead. It's so humbling to think that there are things far greater than yourself, both in size as well as importance, and how, at times we forget this.
"The world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the desire of beauty." My math homework is not beautiful. Nor is my room with clothes scattered all over the place. It's weird how when you just go outside, and leave "life" for a moment how calm and different everything can seem. Just sitting outside, feeling the cool ocean breeze rush past my face, I was at peace, if but for a moment. I forgot my stressful life inside. I forgot my homework, my unanswered text messages, and everything else that occupies my life. It seemed while being outside, I didn't have to worry about anything. I could just sit there. There was no turning on switch. I could just be, and it would happen. Looking back at that sentence it sounds so weird, but nature is one of, if not the only thing that you don't have to put much effort in to appreciate-you just have to be. Yeah, going outside did take a moment to do, but it wasn't like I had to fly somewhere or research something on Google. I just had to go outside.
It's unfortunate that we almost always take nature for granted. It's everywhere, but oftentimes our lives supercede our surroundings. As Emerson puts it, "can these things be without our special wonder?" I think this is so applicable, because it's almost as if once you begin pondering the vast and enormous scope nature holds above our everyday lives, it's overwhelming. Yet, when we don't even pay attention to it, those flowers to our right, and the stars up overhead don't even warrant us looking in their direction.
As Emerson, in reference to the Italians said, "beauty il piu nell' uno," nothing is quite beautiful alone; but is beautiful in the whole. That one star above my head was pretty, but all those stars in totality were gorgeous. 
"Go out of the house to see the moon, and 't is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey. The beauty that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of October, who could ever clutch it? Go forth to find it, and it is gone: 't is only a mirage as you look from the windows of diligence."
It's so true-how do you capture the real essence of nature without actually experiencing it? Looking at the moon from my bedroom windows was definitely not the same as sitting outside beneath it.
Photo Credits~Flickr
moon and ocean collection (1)~atlanticos
winter constellations and zodiacal light~computer science geek
and the moon above~biltrot
2 comments:
helloooo!
this was really really good anafrancesca. I personally really enjoyed the part where you said "It's weird how when you just go outside, and leave "life" for a moment how calm and different everything can seem." I really resonated with that comment. I feel like, especially at our school, we are all so overcommited that we never take the time to appreciate the little things. We find ourselves rushing to the snack bar, complaining about how all the middle schoolers ate the all the good stuff, not bothering to give a quick thank you to Bonnie for all the hard work she puts in. We are constantly cooped up in the library even though we have a beautiful campus that we can just explore or sit in the middle of the quad, and feel the rays of the sun beaming down on us. Or like we said in class the other day, we spend more time on campus than we do in our own homes, and yet we never take the time to go for a 10 minute walk down to the beach and just look out at what we are lucky enough to call home. I know that when I tell people where I go to school, their comment is always "oh my gosh, you go to school right by the beach! do you go super often?!" and I always feel kind of bad saying that I almost never go because we live in this beautiful environment that we take completely for granted. It isn't really "life" unless you're "living" and we need to get out of our bubble and realize the gift we were blessed with and appreciate nature.
I think that just sitting outside and staring up at the stars is a really relaxing thing to do, and it is especially good for bishops kids, since we are all stressed out so much of the time, but sometimes it is hard to push all of that stress and worry outside of your mind, since we have so much to deal with anyway.
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