Journal 8

Joe Hartshorn

Dr. Dan Williams

3 December 2017

Nature Journal 8

            My last journal of the semester details my experience this past weekend riding my bike around the Overton Park area nearby campus. I feel the theme of this semester of taking this course for me personally has been learning to slow down and appreciate the little things around me, both natural and in my interpersonal relationships. This newfound appreciation for the little things led me to desire to bring my bike to campus two weeks ago. I was visiting home and attending my brother’s final high school football game of his career, and had the idea to pick up my childhood mountain bike from home. I had never had a bike in my previous three years attending TCU, and had honestly never even thought about bringing it to Fort Worth to ride casually. This class has drawn me to spend more time outdoors when I can, even if it is as little as sitting on my backyard porch for an hour and relaxing after my classes on any given afternoon at my house off campus. Thus I recently felt the desire to ride a bike around areas near campus with the weather getting nicer and the trees turning color with fall upon us, and spend time in thought as I rode.

            I set off on my bike from my house near Paschal high school, and rode from there down Berry towards Overton Park. I hopped on the walking/biking trails that connect to Overton Park off of Berry, and immediately felt as though I wasn’t near TCU anymore. I don’t think I’ve rode a bike casually for pleasure since high school, so nostalgia also rushed my brain full of warming memories and positive energy. I never accelerated in a manner that felt taxing on my legs or even fast, rather I kept at a pace similar to gliding or strolling. The trees that resided overhead as I rode provided a wonderful shade that the rays of the sun peaked through, engulfing my body as well as the ground beneath me with a beautifully contrasting pattern of dark and light. The air was crisp as I rode, so crisp I could almost taste it. I haven’t wrote in much detail in my previous journals regarding my observations of the air around me, so today I spent a great deal of time contemplating the air that gently whipped my face as I rode through it.

            The air around me felt utterly perfect on this Sunday afternoon. It was about sixty five degrees outside and although it was now December, it finally felt like autumn in Fort Worth. As I rode my bike along the trails it felt as though I was carefully slicing through the air as if the air in front of me was a wall that could be cut through as smoothly as butter. While there was no apparent or considerable breeze outside at the moment, as I rode the air pressed against my face and the rest of my body as if a fan was blowing directly at me. The air was attempting to resist my forward movement but knew there was nothing it could do besides press against me with the disguise of a slight breeze. As I rode, I thought about how interesting it is that our society has quantified how the air outside feels with numbers and statistics. We have reduced the wondrous feeling of air into numbers such as temperature, humidity level, wind speed, etc. and that is all we leave it at. We don’t seem to stop and contemplate or discuss how the air outside makes us feel. Rather we tell others the temperature and allow ourselves to minimize our feelings to a number that simply signifies to us what clothes to wear on any given day. The air today felt crisp, comfortable, and content. The air on this beautiful Sunday afternoon made me feel so peaceful. I hope to continue this practice of stopping and examining how the air actually feels outside, rather than allowing a number to take this experience away from me.