The Wilderness Between

I must say that I agree whole-heartedly with Joyce Carol Oates on the subject of nature in her essay "Against Nature."

What is nature? Whatever it is, I feel my response will only be "glamorized" and "romanticized". Or perhaps, feeling particularly scientific or bitter, I would lean towards my evolutionary psychology background and tell you that I for one am glad that the baby antelope on the National Geographic channell was eaten because it is survival of the fittest.

When I think of how to define nature, the first thing that pops into my head is the word "ecosystem." Nature is terribly complex and busy. It is beautiful and ugly, shocking and banal, but all of these things fit together, balanced precariously. Sometimes the scale is tipped in a certain direction, but more often than not, if left to its own devices, nature will right things again with comets or ice ages.

To put it simply, and in the context of our society, nature is "outside." To put it in a philosophical setting, nature is. It is a force like gravity or time. Honestly, I'm not even really sure what is included in "nature." Is it biology? Is it mircobiology? Is it rocks? Is it weather? If it is weather, does it extend to outer space and other planets where temperature and positioning play a crucial role in denying these rocks the same green, leafy life that we normally associate with the word "nature"?

To me, nature is all of these things, and the result of all of these things. Anything not constructed by man. However, I am reconsidering this last clause.

Before this class, I would have said that my wild places are in South Dakota and Wyoming, places where humans live miles apart, where you can drive for hours without seeing a single person, where the landscape is beautiful and harsh. But none of my wild places seem particularly wild now, and after reading Oate's essay, I must agree that "Nature, as it is understood in the usual slapdash way, [is] as human...experience". Hiking and camping were nature to me before. These were the means by which I met "nature" and "wildness".

At this point, wildness, to me, is simply an unkempt space where nature is allowed to take hold as it will. The grass is not trimmed, the trees are uncut, the leaves do not get raked, and the wildlife is allowed to fend for itself as it has for thousands of year. I realize how limited this definition is, how tame. But there are very few places that I can think of that are truly allowed to thrive and flourish as they are.

On my recent trip to Montana, Estes Park, and the Rocky Mountain National Park, I was surprised by how many roadways there were in the “wild”. Even the national parks cut their grass, place gravel for paths and aluminum cans for trash. They cut trees to make room for more cabins and telephone poles, and the "wild" animals wear collars and tags so that their populations can be controlled.

One of the most depressing moments in my recent memory was finding a herd of elk, proud and majestic with antlers as a crown, eating from the dumpster outside of the cabin area.

We were supposed to be in one of the most beautiful wild places left in our country, but it was too late. These nature trails and mountain hikes that allowed us city dwellers a glimpse into the wild, tamed it. It shaped it, and often, just to allow more humans to wander saftely and take pictures to hang on their walls.

What happened to that darker side, the dangerous side that is crucial to my definition of wildness? Of nature? The big, bad wolf has left our forests.

I'm hoping this class will help me become more comfortable in nature. I also think that it is already challenging my beliefs about nature, which is always a good thing. Finally, I hope this class will help sharpen my creative non-fiction. I've never taken a non-fiction class before.