The creek rushes at a slight downhill splashing as it comes to a slow passive pace. The water is singing and reaching the peak of its song as it goes down the little ledge, humming, and then coming to a whisper. The song of the water is glistening in the distance, shining bright from the sparkle of the sun. As the song becomes lessened, the life around the creek becomes clearer. A home to the abiotic and biotic, the creek is not only alive in the living things, like the deep green algae bathing on the surrounding rocks, daring to get in the water, or the trees illuminated from the abundance of water but also the mud along with its sediments have come to life in the water. The rocks have made a living in the creek and they also are part of the water’s song. The rocks are sleeping while the alga caresses them, terrestrial and aquatic alike. They are not an obstacle to the water but rather a way to keep moving forward. The still life of the water is paradoxically vibrant and bursting with movement, flowing past rocks then gently cooing them. Graceful yet powerful, I can only imagine how many years it took to make a jagged rock smooth and round like the ones I observed and how many more years ago were the mud and sediments floating in the water were once rounded rocks. All the rocks – jagged, round, or sediment form – have become one single being with the creek. I believe this is the true mechanism of nature – coexistence so deeply interconnected that it is impossible to fully grasp at once. In the words of Aldo Leopold,“it is fortunate, perhaps, that no matter how intently one studies the hundred little dramas of the woods and meadows, one can never learn all of the salient facts about any one of them”. There is so much life going on around the creek from the movement of the water, the vibrant trees, to the distant sound of bird calls and the rustling of small animals hiding in their homes. However, on a trip to and from the creek, more things were noticed.
First, the weather was gloomy but not so gloomy that the rustling of squirrels and bird songs couldn’t be heard. I noticed that the farther away from the creek, the more evident it was of the dry, dead harshness of weather, climate, and urban life that has affected the plants and presence of fauna. The trail was cracked and the sound of life seemed to blur into the sound of passing cars. I even saw cans and bottles desperately trying to fit into the natural world. Maybe it was the climate, the time of day, or the weather, but one thing stuck with me as I was walking out of Blunn Creek: the closer to nature you get – isolated from everyday life and technology – an appreciation for little things begins to form and in turn, the unnatural things are more noticeable. There are radical differences in the fauna and flora closer to the road compared to the life residing by the creek. I don’t want to dwell on the negative aspect of my experiences but rather come to the conclusion that even in the center of an urban area, there is an entire different life going on, a life much more peaceful and ardent, a community living in harmony, and it is nature at its best.