How can nature be so cruel? How can it make the leaves wither and die then fall from the sky? The wind knocks them from the trees; sends them flying far from home. The leaves change, they grow from green to red ana orange to brown. Then to be mowed into millions of shreds, the ground now speckled with the remains of leaves. The trees are bare and broken once the wind sweeps away their babies. They stand lonley side by side naked. As if thrown out to die in the cold without a jacket. Only the roots keep them sound, keep them grounded from flying away into the open abyss of nature. With spring comes rebirth. The living and growing of life instead of death. There is always a rebirth, a new life to look forward to.

It was cold behind the English House this morning. I could feel it mostly on the tips of my body. The leaves on the trees and the ones on the ground were not as colorful as they were last time. It was not as hard to take it all in. Everything seemed a bit more dull. The leaves were not falling as quickly as they were last time, probably because there were not as many that needed to fall. I sat on the little wooden stool this time instead of on the ground. As I looked out over the yard I considered whether or not it was a wild place. Wild like a human mother who embraces her inner mother bear, and who is not afraid to rise to anger, or settle into intense love. I decided that it wasn’t. Because I think if the back yard of the English House had a choice it would not grow that way it’s growing now. It wouldn’t be so neat. Now it’s  tame yard, similar to a woman who has been taught that it’s not feminine to show aggression. But for the yard, I think that’s okay.

Last time we talked,
Your two year old twins,
Your cramped condominium,
Your nonprofit job insecurity,
You found a guy with my name,
My face, my job, your husband, he was away,
Far away, away in the desert at burning man.
You cried and you used the L word twice.
You missed me still and I felt the same.
Fifteen years and I still felt the same,
And you were still the same and
If I had said the word, Come,
You would have, I know,
But I wouldn't
And I didn't.
I didn't.

My mind was filled with memories. I just talked to my childhood friend. Our friendship started since the carefree summers when we were playing on the rice field in the neighborhood everyday. It felt so good to immerse myself in nature, with grasshoppers, with wild flowers and with a good friend. So today I decided to reconnect with nature again, the way I used to do. Having put off my shoes, I started walking barefoot on the grass lawn behind Rhoads. It did not feel really comfortable at first, with the little itching and tickling feeling as grass touched my feet soles. That there might be something like an insect in the grass added to my reluctance. But as I kept on walking, and breathing in the fresh air, listening to the sounds of nature, I felt connected. Without shoes, I felt myself getting closer and closer to the earth, to the nature. Without a barrier between my skin and the ground, I felt more balance and control over myself, too. And my feet experienced more freedom. Walking barefoot with the cool and soft grass was like a massage, so refreshing and pleasant. The experience was very much different from those I had as a child playing with her friend, yet a physical contact with nature made me feel younger…

One of the students in my other class did some research on Erdman, and discovered that Louis Kahn, the architect who designed it, said, “A dormitory should not express a nostalgia for home, it is not a permanent place, but an interim place.” Can an interim place be a niche?

For me, A Patriot’s Journal was Williams’s most compelling essay.  I’ve been thinking about patriotism this week because I have strong and contradictory sentiments about the current escalating military conflict in Gaza/Israel.  The images from this most recent iteration of the war are disturbing--they always have been.  As usual, these pictures have prompted me to think about the images we don’t have from this country’s similar military conflict.  My country’s war which resulted in European control of this land.  This land which I feel so lucky to call my home.  This land that I love.  

"I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

                                                                        ~Galileo Galilei (But probably in Italian…)

The city is different during the night than it is during the day. It is the not the same city. Carmen Papalia partially vocalizes this in Caning in the City when he discusses his own night-blindness, but what we all fail to acknowledge is that all our visions are affected by the shift from night to day. Our visibility is impaired, which leads to a whole range of effects that makes night seem so much more inherently daunting than the day, and in many ways it is a very gendered experience. Papalia’s way of seeing is very different, as necessitated by his inability to see during the night. But it’s also beautifully effective and absolutely incredible that his vision has evolved so. I wish we could appreciate our night vision in this way, instead of being so mistrusting of the night.