Anyone who\u2019s grown up near a body of water can attest to the gradual and unalterable dependency that develops between a sea, bay, lake, or river and its denizens.\u00a0 Everyone has their own explanations as to why this is, but I believe it\u2019s primarily owing to the quality of water as moving and alive, which allows those who interact with it to experience by extension its perpetual shifts and flows.\u00a0 Living near a body of water, you can\u2019t help but begin to calibrate yourself to the erratic patterns of its same inconstant cycles.\u00a0 We as changeable beings living in a largely unpredictable world can relate to water and its capricious, enigmatic flow.\u00a0 Over the past few years, I\u2019ve experienced significant changes in my life.\u00a0 At their core, these changes can be traced back to the places I\u2019ve lived and, naturally, the Chesapeake Bay and the James River\u2014the aquatic bodies that characterize them.\u00a0 Now, as I look back on my time near the James, I draw closer and closer to my time near a new river, the Tiber, and what changes that may mean in the very near future.<\/p>\n
Growing up next to the Chesapeake Bay, my life revolved around the rhythm of rising and falling of salty green tides. \u00a0But, when I left for college two years ago, I left that body of water that had defined me and nurtured me for 18 years to embrace the James River, an entirely new body of water.\u00a0 These past two years on the banks of the James have been a time of immeasurable growth and change as I expanded my aquatic enculturation westward from the Bay and into the churning brown water of the River.\u00a0 Over the course of our study of geography of the James River, I\u2019ve come to understand more about my environment, its connectivity, and myself by learning to better understand the James.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Working for three days to clean up one of the parks in the James River watershed was one of my more notable learning experiences this past semester. \u00a0In \u201cThree Days on the Isle\u201d I described this experience and the conclusions I reached as a result.\u00a0 After watching trash and litter return to the site day after day, I was made aware of the intense sense of protectiveness I felt for the river and the local environment in general.\u00a0 I realized then that cleaning up the riverbank was important because the riverbank is connected to the river, which is connected to the city, which is connected to the people I love and the life I\u2019ve built here.\u00a0 Those three days helped me understand connectivity in a way I hadn\u2019t considered yet\u2014a way that made me more mindful of the far-reaching effects of any action, detrimental or beneficial.<\/p>\n
A second influential experience this semester was the revisiting of my reflection spot, a small garden on campus.\u00a0 Coupled with my increased awareness of the connectivity of the watershed, the habitual observance of a single spot helped me learn to tune in to my environment more than I was previously in the habit of doing.\u00a0 After rereading and comparing my three past posts on this subject, \u201cThe Secret Garden,\u201d \u201cTime Stops,\u201d and \u201cThe Habit of Looking Up,\u201d I noted a trend moving toward a natural consciousness that I previously couldn\u2019t claim.\u00a0 After researching and witnessing the function of this watershed as a collective whole, I think it was only right that the next step in my process of growth was to learn to perceive and appreciate the minute workings of this complex system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Conclusively, living along the James has helped me achieve a new cognizance of place.\u00a0 The importance of maintaining such an awareness is expressed beautifully in the quote by Annie Dillard that Adrienne used in her March 28 post\u2014\u201cThese are our few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present.\u201d\u00a0 Only after forming a new relationship with this body of water did I realize the unique and important dependence I had on my \u201cnative\u201d waterway and that such a dependence is not exclusive to a single place.\u00a0 The James has welcomed me, a stranger, with open arms to all it has to offer, which has proven to be quite a lot.\u00a0 The secrets it reveals, however, come with patient and diligent interaction, as Carolyn seems to identify in her reflection on the realization of all she and we have learned in a single moment in the woods in \u201cGreenery.\u201d\u00a0 The integral importance that geography has had on the lessons I\u2019ve learned this and all years past is evident.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s for this reason that I\u2019ve come to \u00a0anticipate the coming stark change of environment of study abroad as an opportunity to learn and absorb the wholly diverse \u00a0lessons of living near a third body of water.\u00a0 In the fall, I\u2019ll leave both of the formative influence of the Bay and the River behind in pursuit of an entirely new experience with water.\u00a0 Studying abroad in Rome, Italy will mean acquainting myself for the first time with the Tiber River.\u00a0 The Tiber or Il Tevere<\/em>, as it is called in Italy, rises in the Apennine Mountains of Northern Italy and empties 252 miles southwest into the Tyrrhenian Sea.\u00a0 It\u2019s here that I hope to take the teachings of our Virginian waterways and expand further on them through the medium of a harmonious coexistence with the local environment.<\/p>\n When I return to my childhood home, the smell of the salt air wafting between spindly Loblolly Pines is familiar and welcoming.\u00a0 Likewise, driving over the Huguenot Bridge for the first time upon a return to Richmond and the empowering view of the Pony Pasture Rapids it reveals is becoming equally as intimate and uplifting.\u00a0 My time in these places has helped me grow into a more mindful, aware, and appreciative quasi-environmentalist.\u00a0 Leaving these waters which have had such a profound impact on me is going to be one of the most challenging changes I\u2019ll have made in my life so far, but perhaps when I return home from Rome, I\u2019ll return with new associations to recall an equally significant newfound awareness of and relationship with a new place, a new body of water, and a new part of myself, and perhaps even a more comprehensive understanding of an even greater connectivity than that which I\u2019ve observed this past semester.<\/p>\n As visiting professor and photographer Michael Kolster advised in his lecture about capturing the history and personality of a river through wet plate photography, sometimes when you find a moment deserving of preservation it\u2019s worthwhile to turn 180 degrees on the spot to find that the view in the opposite direction is just as informative.\u00a0 Looking forward, I see a future adventure on the Roman river full of momentous adaptations and equally momentous personal growth.\u00a0 Turning to look behind me, I see a past informed and supported by the Virginian waters for which I am eternally grateful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Anyone who\u2019s grown up near a body of water can attest to the gradual and unalterable dependency that develops between a sea, bay, lake, or river and its denizens.\u00a0 Everyone has their own explanations as to why this is, but … Continue reading