Nature Journal #5 - The Trinity River

This morning, I began my day with a walk along the Trinity River. While I wouldn’t call myself a morning person by nature, it was important to me to try to set some time aside for enjoying the stillness and the quietness as the world wakes up, watching the rising sun, and listening to the birds and the bugs. In the midst of a busy semester – where there always seems to be something else to do; some other class, meeting, or obligation that I’m running around to – it was a refreshing change of pace to slow down, shift my focus away from myself and out onto the natural world around me. As best as I could, I tried to center myself and focus on the present moment, paying attention to and admiring the details around me – the sight of the white birds nestled in the trees along the river, the sound of the cicadas in the tree outside of my house, the feeling of the rising sun against my back. 

As I walked along the river in the quiet hours of the morning, I was able to reflect on things that I don’t always have the chance to, to look at the blessings of my life from a bird’s eye view and feel very thankful for them – my family and my friends, the classes that I’m taking and the things that I’m learning, the changing of the seasons, what the future will hold for me in a new job and a new city after graduation. With whatever reflection popped into my mind, I felt a rush of emotions, ranging from happiness and gratitude to fear and anxiety. I embraced each of these emotions as they came and then left them on the trail behind me as I walked on. I felt lighter. And, as I walked along the river in the quiet hours of the morning, I thought back to yesterday’s adventures at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge. Beginning with a busy morning of back-to-back presentations in my Intermediate Macroeconomics class and my Roxo internship, I was on the go from 10:00 AM until 4:50 PM. Setting out in the morning, I brought with me a bag of essentials for our trip to the Refuge: my work outfit and boots, a hat, water, and a snack. As we headed to the Refuge, I was admittedly tired and felt a headache setting in. Once we got there and got to work, however, I was able to focus on the work at hand and lean into the satisfying feeling of clearing out logs and privet. It lifted my spirits to see, as we worked, the progress we were gradually making.

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