The end is only the beginning...

I am sitting in my back yard for the last official blog post of the semester. It's almost eighty degrees, the sun is still shining while I listed to Frank Sinatra and my fiance is mowing the lawn. The trees have their little buds and the insects are out and about now - you can see the birds flying after them or picking them from the ground. Happiness is in the air, along with the scent of Summer and promises. I can't help but feel happy.

When I was first registering for classes for this semester, I really wanted to take Travel Writing. I would have signed up for it, but I forgot about registration day and the class was filled before I remembered and signed on. While I still think I would enjoy Travel Writing, I am thankful for my awful memory because I have really enjoyed Nature Writing this semester.

Not only has this class given me the opportunity to see that nature writing isn't just for those uber-ecologically aware types, but it has also allowed me to focus on my own connection to the big wide world. I've really enjoyed the readings that have offered multiple perspectives on our responsibility to the environment we live in, which has caused me to really become a part of my place. I would have been connected to the place that I've chosen to write about regardless. I mean, it is my back yard. But, I feel like I would have been connected to it by possessing it. Now I feel that it is such a gift that we were able to find a home amidst such beautiful nature. We were looking for a house that was situated on some land, but I could never have imagined how much I would come to love every blade of grass and every tree.

I was outside a few weeks ago when I heard a chainsaw fire up. I pinpointed the source of the noise - it was coming from the neighbors who live sort of caddy-corner to us, but their property runs behind their house and adjacent to ours. So, the back of our yard, where the woods begin, that is where the neighbor's property begins. I watched them for a while, seeing that they were cutting up already fallen trees. I thought to myself, they must be clearing up some of the dead wood so they can use it for firewood. That seems reasonable in my book. But, a few days ago, I saw them out there again. This time, they were cutting perfectly healthy trees down. Not only that, but they were also cutting these trees down on my property. While I didn't have the guts to go face two grown men with chainsaws by myself (my fiance wasn't home at the time), I was surprised at how much it bothered me. And the part that bothered me the most was not the fact that they were cutting down trees on our lot, but that they were cutting down trees in the first place. How dare they? Did they know how long those trees had been growing there? Hadn't there been enough destruction to the land they cleared to build their house? And the other houses around here? Can't they just leave the land to have some of its own? It makes me want to go plant more trees back there just to make them angry and make more work for them.

I think I am turning into an environmentalist.

I hope that I can continue to explore my place and the surrounding areas. I haven't made it over to our lot across the street that came with the house yet (it's where our sand mound is for our septic system), but it's a wooded acre and leads to eighty acres of woods behind it. I'd love to go exploring in the upcoming months and am looking forward to the surprises. As much as I've become more aware of the nature surrounding me, I am still surprised every day. It was just the other day I was looking for signs of Spring, watching the buds on the trees appear slowly. Then suddenly, the next day, before I was even looking for them, yellow flowers had exploded on the bushes and the trees had those amazing, fragrant white and blush blooms. And part of me hopes to never catch on to nature's schedule so I can always find joy in these sudden appearances.

I'm going to try to keep up with my blog in the coming months so I can continue to remind myself of my connection with the world.

I spent the entire day on Saturday outside. I am so grateful that I can do that now. It has been consistently warm the past few days and although I know it's forecasted to get down into the forties again this weekend, I'll take what I can get. So, on Saturday morning, I took my dog and my homework outside to bask in the beautiful weather. I didn't get a lot accomplished. I wanted to enjoy the sun rather than just sit in it. So, I played a few games of tag with the puppy (he's not very good at it, he always thinks he's it) and when we got tired, we laid down on a blanket in the middle of the grass.

I made it a point when I was laying there to close my eyes and reach out to the nature surrounding me. I could feel the warmth of the sun on my face, lighting my eyelids to a wonderfully warm red. The light breeze caressed my face and it felt like a light touch of silken fingertips. The birds were singing and fluttering about, I could hear them as they passed overhead between the trees. Although their songs were interrupted occasionally by a hammer (my fiance was fixing the gutters), they seemed cheerful and content with the nice weather. I could smell the grass and dirt beneath me, and the air had no trace of winter left in it. It was all Spring and Summer to come, tasting of warmth and freshness.

More weed-flowers, but still beautiful!

In yoga, they always tell you to ground yourself. Press down through the feet, the hands, the body to the earth. Become one with it. I focused on allowing my relaxed body to become one with the ground, letting it grow roots, become a firm part of the earth. It might seem like a silly concept, but laying there I felt that I became part of my surroundings, part of this great place and I could feel the throbbing of the pulse of the earth. Everything began to pulsate in time to each other, becoming intertwined and infinitely connected.

After twenty minutes, I turned my head to one side, and opened my eyes. Tiny little flowers had made an appearance that I had missed before. (And, of course, when I try to get a picture, the dog lays down right on top of them). While I know they are weeds to most, they are still so beautiful and I think about the roots of trees and flowers and grass and plants being interconnected throughout the entire planet.

Cody giving me the evil eye.
They are his flowers!

 Does everything spring from the same one root system? It seems like a wonderful idea to explain how each aspect of our environment is interconnected. We have to take care of all of it for the roots to thrive and grow. I can't wait to see what else pops up in my back yard this Spring, taking root and making it home.

Where do the bluebirds fly?

Photo from www.ejphoto.com

I have to tell you about this bird. Last week, on one of the warmer days, I was walking around my back yard with the puppy. All of the sudden, while I was standing near the fence and a few bushes, still bare of foliage, there was movement that I caught out of the corner of my eye. I turned and for a brief second saw a bright path of blue and orange. I was mesmerized and tried to follow it as it flittered away, landing farther from me on the fence post. This was one of the prettiest birds I have seen in my yard so far this Spring. I wanted to run and get my camera, but I stood for a while and watched it to be sure of what I was seeing. It perched itself on the trunk of one of the pine trees in the yard and whistled away while I gazed at its vibrant blue feathers and vivid red-orange belly. Eventually, a similar bird, though the colors were muted, joined this little singer and they proceeded to playfully fly around, playing some intricate form of tag. Eventually, I hurried inside, making my fiancé watch to make sure they didn’t get away as I searched for my camera. I tried to use the zoom to capture a picture of the two birds, but unfortunately my camera isn’t the greatest. So, in order to get a closer snapshot, I inched forward, mumbling under my breath that they really needed to hold still while I got a picture. They didn’t comply, and proceeded to flirt around with each other until they flew off into the neighbor’s trees. My fiancé was convinced that they were just blue jays, but I knew they were both too small and the color wasn’t right. I have since waited for them to come back, but they don’t seem to like my yard as much as the neighbor’s. I did catch a brief glimpse of them yesterday when I was walking the dog. They were doing the same song and dance as before, but high above my head amid the bare branches of the trees next door.

From some brief research on trusty Google, I found out that these were Eastern Bluebirds. Thanks to AllAboutBirds.org, I saw some pretty great pictures and learned about their habitats. From what the site says, they frequently use nest boxes or old woodpecker holes (there are a lot of woodpeckers around here, too), so my new project once the semester is over is to get some wood and build a bird box. I’m hoping that they can come to love my back yard as much as I do, and we can get along together well in the future. I think I might need to work on my patience, though, or get a better camera if I’m going to get a picture. I'm just happy that I am finally getting a chance to see the wildlife that I am now sharing this space with. I hope that I'll be able to see much more in the coming (warmer) months and we can learn to grow comfortable with each other's presence here.

Before we reach the delta...



After driving through four different states where all I saw was grey, flat expanses of winter-trodden grasses and overcast skies, I started to drive through a different type of country. The hills began to roll a bit higher and the grass was long, green, and swaying in the breeze. The sun came out and was warm for late April and it cast the deep blue waters into sharp contrast with the surrounding green. Little peaks of white appeared in every puddle and pond, hidden in the hollows of the hills that were alive with motion. Cresting a large hill, I expected more of the same wonderfully alive landscape on the other side, but when I reached the top and began my descent, I actually gasped. Flowing before my very eyes was the broad, rushing waters of the Missouri River. I had just driven into South Dakota and I swore at that site that this was my new favorite place on earth.

Being from Pittsburgh it is a river that I am familiar with. Two rivers cradle the city on either side, bringing it to a softened point and creating another river that carries everything away. Sometimes they appear to flow slowly when you watch the barges drift down stream, their deep horns bellowing when approaching one of the many bridges that link the land together, or in the winter when hunks of ice bob forlornly as they drift down stream. At other times, you see the speedboats at the Regatta and watch the spray as the river seems to speed by, hurrying along the Spring and Summer rains. Always, though, these rivers are grey. Grey or brown or some combination of the two. They carry trash and dirt and pollution from the steel mills and river banks strewn with discarded waste from fishing trips and parties. I have known these rivers all my life.



This picture doesn't do it justice, but it's one of the best I took on my trip.

And yet to see a river that is such a rich, deep blue made me realize that I never knew rivers at all. The beauty of it sitting nestled in a valley made everything seem even more alive. The sun flitted in and out of clouds, the colors varying each time is re-appeared. I had been blind before and now that my vision was restored, all of the colors were fresh and brand new, having never been seen before. Crossing that bridge over the Missouri River was nothing like travelling in and out of Pittsburgh over the bridges that connect the city together. It was travelling, instead, into a great unknown full of possibility. It was new and clean and fresh water, just like the opportunities that lay beyond it.

I drove over that bridge and spent my summer working in Yellowstone National Park. While that experience alone changed something inside me, it was the vision of this river that began that transformation. Something about that water, the color or its clean, white peaks frothing as it rushed by, reminded me that there are possibilities. Water represents cleanliness. It’s used in baptisms to cleanse the soul. But, it’s not its religious connotations or the age-old associations that make me love the water. It’s the beauty of it, the things that it sees and encounters as it rushes past so many different shores.

These feelings of possibility are always in the back of my mind. Even though the Pittsburgh rivers may not be clean and blue, they show more readily the evidence of everything they have experienced before they came to me, and hint at everything they will see when they are gone. Having come back to this city after seeing the Missouri River, I can appreciate the rivers now. We should embrace possibilities as we swim through this running stream, this life, experiencing things and gathering them within us before we reach the delta.

Possibilities

The Spring Solstice represents the point in the year where the sun rises exactly in the East and sets exactly in the West. Everyone, everywhere experiences exactly a twelve-hour day, thus equinox, which, from its Latin derivation, means equal night. This happens twice a year, in Spring and Fall. And we can say that yesterday was exactly the same day for everyone.

Of course, what happened during the day might not have been the same for every single person on earth, but it’s the idea of it that matters. We can have a oneness, a sameness, a community experience that unites us.

Sitting in my back yard, I am thinking about the idea of nature as a way of bringing people together. It’s sunny, but cold and snowing, oddly enough. It looks like the trees have dandruff, the little bits of white swirling around lightly, coming from some cloud that I can’t seem to pin point. And yet this is so familiar. Snow. Sun. Cold. Wind. Trees and grass. It’s something that everyone knows. Each person’s idea of these things might be different, but when someone says “forest” we get a picture in our heads. And we associate certain smells and tastes and feelings with that picture. Is there a way for nature to unite us?

I recently found a nature blog by a couple named Kenton and Rebecca (it’s a bit outdated, the last post in 2010), and one of the posts I read started me thinking about this connection to nature and how we can find ways of using nature to bring people together. One post about shelf fungus mentions that nature is full of objects that mimic much of our modern technologies. But, does nature really mimic the modern world, or did we start off by mimicking nature? I think it’s the latter and I think this might be the way to get it together. All of the things that we see in nature are represented in some way in things that we take for granted. Pillows, umbrellas, shelves. How about moss, mushroom caps, or the shelf fungus? Let’s get back to basics here. Obviously, our community of human beings began in nature, the ideas for things and inventions coming from our surroundings. Let’s find those things again and embrace them. Go out and look for what is familiar and you can re-commune with the environment that we sprung from, learning to be one with our surroundings instead of building over and around nature, ignoring it as a fading space that doesn’t offer anything new.

I can’t help thinking that most people, when they think of nature or wilderness, think of something old. True, we have built our cities within these landscapes and have pushed wilderness and nature further away from us, making it seem like a distant dream or something that once was. Almost a fairy tale. But, it’s not old. It’s constantly growing and changing and reclaiming its own, bringing us something new every day. It’s a new challenge to re-consider nature and wilderness as not just old, antiquated, something we don’t interact with anymore, but as new and fresh and exciting. Let’s go out and discover our roots and perhaps discover something new in the process.

Letter to a Friend

Dear Stephanie,

I am sitting on my back porch drinking blueberry tea with honey and watching the sun melt the patches of snow that cling to the grass. As I was making my tea, I smiled and suddenly felt extremely happy, remembering when we would sit on the porch of Laurel [dorm at Yellowstone National Park], drinking our tea and smoking cigarettes and talking to people and not minding one bit that there was snow on the ground and it was still cold because the day was full of possibility.

It's been a long time since I've felt that was, but today the sun is shining and it makes me feel warm and hopeful that Spring is around the corner. Recently, with the dreary skies and ran and snow I've felt like the weight of the grey clouds was so oppresive. I am done with the cold and I wish it would abate so I could enjoy the warmth of Spring and Summer.

I got to see the sunrise this morning. Cody, our new puppy, and I were out in the back yard as the sky through the trees started to turn a pale orange, almost like orange cream. The birds were chirping away and slowly the color began to grow until the whole horizon was on fire with an orange gold. It was so beautiful.

Right now, the crows are cawing away in the Eastern White Pine trees. The trees remind me of the dense pine forests in Oregon and it feels like I finally have the best of the things I love the most - the West and the East. I wish you could be here.

I'm taking a nature writing class this semester and in everything I read I am reminded of you. How you love and respect the land, are part of nature in a way that I wish I could be. I am thankful that I have a home that will allow me to begin this journey again. I hope that I can find a way to be with nature and the wilderness again. I don't want to possess it, I want it to possess me.

I've been thinking of places to take you when you come to visit. I know we won't have a ton of free time because of the wedding, but I'd like to take you to see Falling Water to see the way that human and nature interact there. And to show you some of the beautiful landscapes of the East Coast. While out mountains might not be snow-tipped or have rocky faces that blush red in the sun, the smooth, rolling hills covered with moss and trees and mountain laurel, that are seperated by swift running streams and smell of fresh, damp earth have their own certain charm. I hope they don't disappoint.

There's a woodpecker knocking in a nearby tree, although I can't see him. I think he is confusing the dog who keeps searching for the origin of the noise, thinking someone wants to come in the door, even though we are outside.

I hope that you enjoy the tail end of winter, too, although I expect that you mght have to wait a bit longer for Spring. I can't wait to see you and go exploring together, so I can teach you for a change about this new landscape you'll be visiting.

-Kate

Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam....

I feel completely uninspired today. In fact, this entire week I have wanted to do absolutely nothing but lay in bed under the covers and wait for it to be over. And by it, I mean this constant greyness in the skies. It’s starting to feel heavy, weighing me down so much it’s hard to just take a step. And with the rain the past few days, and now the snow, I feel like I’m drowning in precipitation. I hate the cold. And the wet.

In the mornings, sitting outside on the porch, I can at least feel the hope of Spring. I can see the rabbits, who were all but invisible in the Winter, flitting through the darkness. And the birds have begun to sing their early morning songs. The small twitters and warblings have replaced the haunting, rough and throaty call of the crows. I can hear the mourning dove, in her slow, plaintive sobs. That is the only call I can identify with any certainty. The other sounds are a mix of swift chirps and longer whistles. They blend together at times, making it difficult to pick one out from the others.

Eventually they will quiet. And the hopeful early morning Spring smells of clean-washed earth will fade into the uninviting smell of snow. And it will begin to get cold again. And I will have to raise myself against this overwhelming feeling that Spring will never come. I wait for it impatiently, but I’m starting to get intensely frustrated and it’s exhausting.

It makes me consider why animals hibernate. Do they, too, get frustrated waiting for the warmth of the sun, angry when it remains cold and cloudy and snowy? I wish I could be more like them. I wish I was able to eat and eat and eat until I was so fat and exhausted that I would just curl up in a ball with all my friends and sleep the winter away. It seems like a pretty care free life.

Did we, as humans, ever live that way? Did we ever lay down with our fellow animals, call a truce, a time out, in the world of the hunter-gatherers, just so we could lay down and sleep to await the coming of Spring? Probably not. I’m pretty sure that humans would just migrate to where the animals didn’t sleep all winter in order for them to survive.

Picture from the dorm in Yellowstone

It’s interesting, in a sad way, to think of how our relationship with “nature” has changed. In this week’s readings, I was struck by the introduction to the Louis Owens reading. The U.S. Forest Service defines wilderness: “A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth itself and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man is a visitor who does not remain.” I think this is an interesting definition of wilderness. What happened to us that we are no longer part of this wilderness? We used to live in such a way that we were so similar to non-human animals – traveling where the food sources were, battling the elements, making choices based on the earth – and now we have conquered a major part of this wilderness with our shelters and transportation systems. How can we get back to our roots if wilderness, as the Forest Service defines it, is where we are only visitors? A place where we can not remain? And can we reconnect with nature in the bits and pieces of wilderness that we can find in the man-centric “non-wilderness?” Will I be able to find a connection with wilderness and nature in my own back yard, or is it something that I have to find where man has not yet had any interference.

Buffalo grazing outside the dorm

I think of my time in Yellowstone National Park. Was that wilderness? I thought it was. So many animals and natural features of the landscapes, hot springs and geysers and acres upon acres of pine forests, mountains and rivers and waterfalls. It seemed to unrestrained to me, and yet with this definition of wilderness, I don’t think it can be classified as such. Road snake their way through the park and hotels are constructed. Cars and buses and trucks and vans drive slowly up and down the roads and everywhere you go there are people, people, people. 

Buffalo strolling down the road, causing a traffic jam as usual

While the animals didn't seem to mind, I'm sure that when humans first came to the area to make it into America's first National Park, they weren't too pleased.

I want to figure out how to get in touch with this thing we call nature. I was to be immersed in this thing we call wilderness. And yet, where can we find it? How do we get back?

"Maybe that's what life is...the wink of an eye and winking stars."*

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/
media-live/photos/000/012/cache/stars_1230_600x450.jpg

How often do you look up? I have to admit that yesterday was the first time in a while that I had truly looked up and for more time than to just note the weather. And I was happily, pleasantly surprised to discover that I have the perfect back yard for stargazing.

The warmth of the day was fading away by evening yesterday. I was stuck in the office for most of the day and didn’t get to enjoy the sixty degree almost Spring weather we were having. I left a bit early, but by the time I got home the wind had picked up, which always signifies a temperature change. And I knew it was coming. I tried to not let the beautiful day get my hopes up. But, of course, it always does. I miss the sun. And seeing it out yesterday made me miss it even more. There was an aching in my chest for the friend I had long missed and the knowing that it would be gone in a few hours to stay away again for a while was disheartening. I made it home too late to feel the warmth of it on my face. It had already dropped too low to shine over the trees that surround the yard. But, the puppy and I ventured out anyway as the last of the warmth was being blown slowly away from us by the wind. It was a beautiful sunset, the golden rays peeking through the bare branches.

Later that evening, wrapped up against the growing cold, we ventured out again. It was dark by that time, around seven thirty, and I looked up to glare at the offending clouds that were forecasted to bring more snow. And yet, when I looked up, there were only a few whisps in the sky, which were blown away quickly to reveal a deep, deep blue-black. My heart gave a tight squeeze of surprise. There are no streetlights in my neighborhood and the neighboring houses are surrounded with trees. The only light that came to us was from our own back porch light and the stars. Settled into the blackness above me, so comfortable and clear, were Orion the Hunter, poised to strike with his sword in his belt, Pleiades, or the Seven Sisters, clustered in their star dust, Taurus the Bull and Aries the Ram, Corona Borealis, the northern crown, and following them east to see Cepheus and his wife, Cassiopia, who floats upside down as punishment for her vanity. Each of the stars shown clear and familiar. Bright little points in a nothing but dark sky. There was no interrupting light to make them appear dim and they shone brightly, shimmering slightly in their burning. And the sky was fringed with the swaying tops of the trees, which made it look like a theatre. I wanted so badly to lay in the yard and stare at the sky all night. I felt as though I hadn’t seen the sky in years. They were so new in this landscape. But the yard was a swamp from the just-melted snow and the wind was starting to bite and I had other things to finish.

The newness of these stars made the loss of the Spring day not so hard to bear. It gave me something to look forward to. And with the grey sky menacing and oppressive today, it gives me hope that I will be able to see the sun soon and watch it melt away behind the horizon as I anxiously await the appearance of the stars. 

*title quote by Jack Kerouac

Pine trees and dead things

It’s three thirty in the morning on Tuesday. I’m standing in the yard, in the rain, in a puddle. Of course, I’m only standing outside this early in the morning getting my slippers soaked through because the puppy needs to pee. It’s warmer than it has been. Maybe fifty degrees or so. The sudden rise in temperature has melted all the snow and now it hangs in the air as a thin mist. I can’t see to the edge of the yard and the damp clings to everything. Even though it is dark, the mist seems to brighten everything just a bit. It’s something of a midnight glow. I can’t hear anything but the rain falling and trickling down the gutters and the downspouts. And there’s a rooster crowing in the distance from a farm down the road. Following the puppy around to make sure he doesn’t get lost in the darkness, the earth squishes under my feet, mud rising around my slipper every time I take a step. I want to walk around to explore, but it’s early and I’m tired and the puppy needs to learn to sleep through the night.

I am working from home today, so I have time to explore the back yard once the sun rises. Around eight the puppy and I go exploring. We walk out into the yard further, all the way to the bench swing and the back gate of the fence. He’s sniffing the ground and I’m looking up. Covering it from all angles. I haven’t been able to spend much time walking around here since we moved in. At first we were unpacking and then it was just too cold. But I have a chance now, it’s a bit warmer, and I’m surprised when I look at the swing hanging on its rusty chains, the wood damp and faded from the weather and the sun. Sitting on the seat of the swing is a skull. Definitely animal, but I’m not sure what it is or where it came from. It’s sort of gross, but I’m curious about it. How did it come to be here? Did something drop it out of the sky? Did it fall out of a tree? It looks like it’s beaked, but then again there are teeth. Maybe it was a hybrid mutant bird-animal. The hide, or feathers – I can’t tell – are still there, matted and rotting away slowly. There’s another matted patch of fur on the ground by the swing that the puppy finds, so I coax him away before he can get too interested and either eat it, or roll in it.

I finally received my field guide for trees of Pennsylvania. I took it over to the pine trees nearest the fence to try to figure out what my majestic pines actually are. The rain made everything more fragrant. Of course it smelled wet, but the deep pine resin was permeating everything. The water ran in little drops down the trunk of the tree and dripped delicately from the long, slim needles to the ground where it was absorbed into the dried pine needles on the ground. And as I softly padded across this carpet, each step released the sweet fragrance.

I was confident that with my new field guide, I could find out something new about these trees that I am beginning to really love. I looked at the branches, flipped through a few pages, found one that looked sort of similar. The Scotch Pine, or pinus sylvestris, has clustered needles with a rough, single trunk that spreads in an irregular crown. But then again, the next page looked pretty close, too. The Austrian Pine, or pinus nigra, has clustered needles, too, with a scaly, rough bark. But, maybe it was that other one I had passed over two pages ago. The Red Pine, or pinus resinosa, with a single, straight trunk that was reddish-brown, and clustered needles.  I kept looking from tree to book to tree to book, but I don’t think I made any decisive conclusions. I’m currently oscillating between the red pine, the shortleaf pine (this also has clustered needles), and the Eastern white pine (again, clustered needles, rough bark, single trunk). This is a lot harder than I thought.



The puppy was interested in the tiny sapling in the yard, too, but he’s really no help when it comes to identifying trees. He proceeded to jump at it and try to bite off all of the dried leaves from the Fall. He was too cute not to take a picture. J

So, when it is a bit drier outside,  I think it will be easier to identify these mystery pine trees. The wetness made their bark all the same shade of deep brown, so it was hard to see the defining features that might be clearer on a dry, sunny day. Then I could at least make out the unique grooves and patches on the trunks of the trees. 

Bathed in ghostly day

It's one o'clock in the morning as I throw on my snow boots and jacket and tramp out into my back yard, trying to get my new puppy to use the bathroom. While he follows me willingly through the snow to the corner of the yard, he becomes more intent with chewing on the bare branches of the low-lying bush than doing his business. "Hurry up!" I say. This is the command that they recommend you say while you try to house train your dog so they will come to recognize that as a sign to get on with it. He looks at me, then buries his entire head in the snow. I sigh.

Up again at four thirty, since puppies can only "hold it" for three to four hours, he follows me again through the snow out to the corner of the yard. I wait while he sniffs around and plays with the branches of the bush again. The moon is making its descent now, hanging in the sky just over the tops of the trees. It casts a blue-silver light amid the shadows, making the snow shimmer. I exhale, and the steam of my breath it lit with a ghostly light as it dissipates quickly into the cold air. I think of the line from Jack London's <i>Call of the Wild</i>: "Night came on, and a full moon rose high over the trees into the sky, lighting the land till it lay bathed in a ghostly day."

The puppy looks up at me, then looks into the trees. I look up with him, looking at the snow perched on the boughs of the pine we are standing under. It creates a blanket on the tree and the tree is a shelter over us. It's incredibly quiet and still. There are no sounds around us - no wind, no traffic, no animals stirring - there are no sounds except the crunch of snow under my boots and the light snuffling from my companion.

I look down at him again. "Hurry up!" I say. He looks at me again, then goes back to playing in the snow. I know I'm in for mid-night poop duty for another month or two before he is potty trained. Sleepless nights, yes, but a mysterious chance to overcome my fear of my own backyard in the dark. This unfamiliar place is even more unfamiliar by night, the shadows all wrong, the light reflecting back off of the snow onto the trees and the house makes them look almost sinister. I am disoriented by the darkness. After the puppy has done his business, we trudge back in to warmth and bed.

Roots

I’ve been thinking about this word, “home.” There are so many sayings about home: “home is where the heart is” and “you can’t go home again.” But what exactly does it mean?

I was born in Pittsburgh and have lived most of my life here. When I was little, I used to think that each side of the city was so far away, and the limits of the community I lived in were as far as I would ever want to go. As I got older, I wanted to see the world. I have seen some of it, but for the most part I’ve never lived outside of Pittsburgh. I don’t count going to school a few hours away since it was so close to Pittsburgh, but the one experience I had living somewhere far beyond the city limits was the experience that really defined home for me.

For several months I was living and working in Yellowstone National Park. It’s really an ideal opportunity. While working in the park, you get room and board provided, and you’re only a short stroll away from the area you are working in. I was stationed at the Old Faithful Inn and lived in a dorm right behind it. For three days I travelled across a handful of states, taking in the sights and sounds and smells of it all. I remember my first view of mountains. Real mountains, I thought. Nothing like the Appalachian mountains that ran through Pennsylvania. These were majestic and snow tipped, blushing gold and crimson with the sun rise. Everything was new and fresh and exciting. Even the three feet of snow in May was amazing. And for someone who hates the cold, that’s saying a lot.

Eventually, though, I began to notice these new things and compare them with what I knew. The pines that ran for miles across the flat lands weren’t the same as the beautiful oaks and maples that would turn orange and burgundy in the Fall. And the constant smell of sulfur from the hot springs and geysers wasn’t how it was supposed to smell in the middle of summer. It tainted the smell of wildflowers and blew in great drifts of smoke across the boardwalks that lined the geyser basin.

I enjoyed my time there, but I began to miss the familiar smells of home. The way the forest smells in summer – hot, damp, pure earth – and the way the leaves on the trees would shimmer in the breeze beneath the sun, even the way the city crowded with people at the farmer’s markets, bustling between each other through the enticing smell of almost-salt water and exhaust. I pulled out these memories from somewhere in my head, these things that I had stopped noticing because they were so familiar. And that is when I understood that, for me, home is where you want to be. I was enjoying living in a National Park, but what I really wanted was Pittsburgh.

And when I got home, it was seeing this city, seeing these neighborhoods, with a fresh eye. There are so many things to discover here. Even for those who have lived here for so long. I remember reading an article a few months ago that was written about a group of people who drove around to old, almost forgotten Pittsburgh neighborhoods. Some of them I hadn’t even heard of even though I’ve been here for almost 27 years. There are officially ninety-two neighborhoods of the city of Pittsburgh.

It’s strange to think back on the history of this city, of all of these neighborhoods, and wonder what it was about it that made my parents choose to stay here. Or their parents for that matter. Or my great-grandparents. I think there’s something of a sense of community that bonds all of these neighborhoods and people together. Perhaps it had something to do with the blue-collar steel-millers that were so abundant here. They worked hard for their families and had humble beginnings. Even the great men who so define our city – Carnegie, Mellon, Heinz – they all started from small places and made huge names for themselves. You can actually go to see Andy Warhol’s grave. He was born here, and he’s buried here. Warner Brothers made their start in Pittsburgh by opening the first nickelodeon theatre on the North Side.  These men are true examples of Pittsburgh’s greatness. And I think a bit of that has rubbed off on all Pittsburghers. We have something of an adventurous nature to us, and yet we remain loyal to our home, our roots.

I’m sitting at the window looking out into my new back yard. Although the trees in the woods behind the house are bare, there is a dim light caressing them. The snow is rippled and crusty from the freezing winds, cut across by rabbit tracks that just showed up this afternoon. The old buildings in the back and the worn fence, the gates that are unevenly hung and sway back and forth in the wind, blowing closed with the sharp smack of wood against wood, these things all remind me of what it’s like to have aged here. To be a bit worn and yet still hold so much beauty. And there are things that remind me of the mountains, too. The pine trees that dot the yard and their fragrance. Some of these things are still strange to me, but I am learning their ways. I know that all good things and memories and loves will come together in this place to shape it into a home, just like Pittsburgh has always done.

Unfamiliar home

My goal for the next several months is to explore my back yard. This might seem like a trivial task. I mean, how often does someone not know where they are living and what surrounds them? I, for one, don’t know. This is mostly because my fiancé and I just moved into a new house, and partially because life can keep you so busy and focused, that you don’t take the time to look around every once in a while.

So this is my new back yard. The picture is taken from where I sit on the back porch in the morning having my coffee. The yard is partially fenced in, the beams of the fence slightly weathered and slightly uneven. Behind the fence is more yard, and, as you can see from the picture, five of the seven garages that belong to the property, and now to us.

It’s odd for me to be surrounded by pines. I’ve always been in areas of Pittsburgh where deciduous trees are prevalent and pines are scarce. True, the forests of Pennsylvania are full of a variety of both deciduous and coniferous trees, but for some reason, I never associate pine trees with much else in Pennsylvania besides Christmas. When I was in Wyoming and Oregon, the pine trees out there greatly outnumbered the other types of trees, making the air smell all wrong. It didn’t smell familiar at all. It didn’t smell like home to me. Even during the summer when the sun warms the trees and the forest floors, the smell of summer – that clean, warm, humid smell – wasn’t exactly right. Not that it was bad. It just wasn’t summer-smell.

At home, though, the pine trees are a nice reminder of the time I spent out West. It’s like a little piece of the mountains were brought here for me. Of course, there are still plenty of other types of trees – oaks, maple, birch. But these pines are the first thing you notice. I wondered this morning what kind they were. There are one hundred and fifteen total species of pine trees in the world. How am I even able to begin to guess? The needles on some are the long, soft kind. The others resemble the traditional Douglas Fir with the short needles that I always hated. People usually get the Douglas Fir for their Christmas trees and the needles are uncomfortable when you put lights on them. I am not a fan.

Whatever species these pine trees are, though, they still make my own back yard seem mysterious with unfamiliarity. Even after having been here for a month, I still look out at the pines and wonder why they are here. Why instead of another type of tree were they planted in the yard? Is it something in the soil? Or maybe the previous owner just really liked pines. I’ve always been a fan of white birch trees. They seem elegant with their white-silver bark and the contrast of the yellow leaves in fall. But these pine trees make me re-think the majestic.