Time and time again, I fall in love with Virginia after a good rain. The earth is soaked and dark and when it’s warmed by the sun, the heavy scent of layer upon layer of rock, sand, and soil, leaves, branches, trunks, and stems wafts up on waves of undulating humidity. This is not the type of landscape to stand in distant awe of, but one that draws you in to its teeming center.
On Thursday we left the classroom to drift about the Gambles Mill Corridor. The Corridor is a small trail that’s tucked away along the boundary between the Virginia Country Club and the University of Richmond campus and, unlike its pristinely well-maintained neighbors, is refreshingly overgrown and boasts all the best of Virginia’s characteristic tangles of woody vegetation. As we walked, I came across a creek lined with pebbles and sand surrounded on both sides by tall earthen walls. Standing ankle-deep in the cold water of yesterday’s rain, I fell in love again as I have before.
When we fall in love, we seek to discover all that we can about the object of our affections. In order to properly care for who or what we love, we must know them and what it is they need to prosper. Falling in love with a biosphere is no different. Living in Virginia makes it easy to feel connected to the environment, but remembering to carry out the obligations that respecting this connectivity necessitates is not as easy. As much as we love the Earth, the technologies and practices that facilitate and accompany human existence at the expense of our natural world are difficult to renounce, and we grow neglectful. It’s for this reason that the study of geography and environmental sciences is paramount because the more we learn about our environment, the more mindful we can become and the more we’ll remember to respect the connection.
Check out the perfect soundtrack for this day.
So we’ve been charged with writing a comment updating our opinion of the GMC after taking the second walking tour last week. My opinions haven’t really changed, but in light of some of my classmates’ posts I do think it’s important to comment that I do acknowledge that the Corridor is not pretty in a traditional sense. There’s certainly quite a lot to distress over as far as litter and neglect go, but I maintain that there’s much to lose oneself in and adore, even on that tiny stretch of shoddily-paven trail. Not to get too broad or political, but in this day and age (and economy) it’s going to become essential to redefine our current notions of beauty and pleasure and learn to seek and appreciate them in the smallest or most unlikely places.
Great post Shannon! One question though, what does the current economy have to do with the definition of beauty?