Today a little before dusk I walked over to my reflection spot on a bench beside the lake across from Lakeview. The scene was very gloomy today. The sky was overcast, and the trees were bare. The grass was dried up and yellow and two geese grazed on this hay-like ground cover nearby. One of them was clearly a Canadian goose while the other looked deceptively like a duck but was the size of a goose. As soon as I walked up the two animals got back into the water and swam away. The whole scene seemed very lifeless. I could see ducks and birds in the lake and woods and see people walking around the commons and the baseball field across the way. People often walked by with their dogs or ran past exercising, but I did not hear any noise from them. Not a chirp or a bark or a conversation.
It was incredibly gloomy and just as this realization crept over me the baseball stadium began playing the song Piano Man by Billy Joel. (I suspect our team just lost a game) In fact they played the entire song twice in a row. It kind of felt like I was in a movie because the music matched the mood so well. I had expected visiting my reflection spot would make me feel connected to nature on campus but instead I found it gave me less of a connection to the people and animals around me. The music seemed like such an intrusion on the calm nature of the lake. I made me wonder, if I felt this way about having the music being blasted how might this action affect the animals that use the lake as a habitat. The speakers for the baseball field are so close to the lake that I wonder if it causes significant noise pollution that would have any negative impacts on the lake ecosystem. When the song began playing for the third time I decided it was time to head back inside. Hopefully the spring will bring a more positive experience while visiting my reflection spot.