WRITING NATURE: 
DISCOURSES OF ECOLOGY

The cold upstate New York mornings in mid autumn are often dewy and prone to giving those who jog goose pimples. As I walk out of the garage, I replenish my lungs with the fresh suburban air. The pine smell and freshness always so apparent in the morning are almost never perceptible by midday, perhaps because during the night, the trees have had a chance to replenish the oxygen in the air and eat up the carbon dioxide produced in mass quantities by the rush hour traffic gridlocks from commuters on the nearby major roads and thruways. The cool, mind-clearing air on my skin reminds me that a new day is beginning.

This same air brushing by me also serves a broom-like purpose, sweeping away any thoughts or worries I had the night before regarding school, friends, ill relatives or work. Its replenishing quality makes me feel as though I have a fresh slate to begin the day with, free to start anew, approaching my worries from a new, original perspective.

As I travel into the forest, I am overwhelmed by the quiet surroundings there. The owls and other nocturnal creatures have retired to their nests and dens while the diurnal animals are not yet beginning their day. The only sounds that are perceptible to me are those that I create by moving through the forest. The crunching of dried pine needles on the asphalt trail feels natural; the heavy breathing, rhythmic. These rhythmic, musical sounds and the ambient noise of wind moving through the tree tops, rattling the maple and oak leaves and pine needles soothe me.

I often wonder at the systematic beauty of nature as I jog between these trees. A berry drops in front of me. Seeing it spiral and settle on the path, I notice an alert gray squirrel, crouching in the bushes with its paws clutched to its chest and tail behind it in an "S," waiting to see if I will attempt to retrieve this berry as well. As I pass by, I turn my head around, see the squirrel sprint to the berry, pick it up, stuff it into its cheek, and scamper back into the vegetation. Letting the squirrel go on its way instead of disrupting my rhythm to watch it run off, I continue to jog through the sunrise, pondering over that little berry and the future in store for it.

Most likely, that berry will be stored in the squirrel's den before it begins hibernation and eventually eaten for its nourishment. After it goes through the squirrel's digestive system, its tiny seeds will be dropped somewhere in excrement, perhaps among the roots of the other trees or perhaps in a field somewhere. If it is left among the towering trees and bushes from which it came, it will most likely not grow into a full tree or bush because it will have to compete for water and sunlight with the strangling roots and shading leaves of the mighty oaks and maples. Yet, if it is left in a field somewhere, it may have a chance at survival, competing with biologically simple grasses in the spring for water and basic nutrients, but eventually forming a symbiotic relationship with the weeds, providing them with a shady spot for growth and them providing resistance to soil erosion. As the tree comes of fruit-bearing age, it too drops berries on the ground. But now, covered and hiding in the thick grass, they may not be picked up by a squirrel and may instead be nurtured into another berry tree or bush.

Heaving mightily up the next hill in the path, I pass by a natural vista on the cliff to my right; looking in that direction, I see the Mohawk River, like a mirror staring back at me. Its glassy surface seems odd to me, as I usually have been out on the river for crew practice when it was choppy or wavy in the afternoons. It seems to have been resting all evening as well, cleansing itself for the day ahead, just as the fresh, cold air earlier smelled clean and devoid of hydrocarbon combustion products. A few birds pass high over the water across the rising sun's golden face, heading south to a warmer climate for breeding season.

As the arc of my view passes the vista, I come down the hill and run by the Aqueduct Rowing Club, my crew's boathouse. The parking lot is abandoned. Enchanted by the fact that the Mohawk is so peaceful, I stop my jog and go down to sit on the boathouse's floating docks. As the wind has now picked up a bit, the water claps against the Styrofoam blocks under the wood, serving as a drum in the symphony of nature. Letting my breath return to its normal pace, my heartbeat slows. I bask in the beauty of these surroundings. It is nice to be alone like this once in a while, knowing that there are few others who are awake at this hour. The feeling of being the only one awake makes one feel as if he is the only one alive at that moment, selfishly taking in the beauty of nature all for himself. Closing my eyes, I listen to the light wind and clapping water, letting the wind support my back and posture. As I sit there with my eyes closed, I am in awe that all of the objects involved in these events exist because of the four forces in physics: the strong (the force that holds the protons and neutrons together in the nuclei of atoms), the weak (the force that accounts for radioactivity), the gravitational (the force that holds the Earth in orbit), and the electromagnetic (the force between charged particles).

We have come so far from the man that discovered fire and our ape predecessors, seeing how we are on the verge of attempting to solve crucial scientific concepts, such as string theory, which could very well be the underlying, unifying theory of the universe&emdash;possibly the center of an onion of other theories that have been peeled away over the years by many scientists.

The sun takes another step into the sky, closer to the point when the Town of Niskayuna begins to raise its sleepy head from the night's slumber. As I get up, a car passes by on the road behind the bike path, stopping at the traffic light in front of the boathouse. I hear the beating drum of the pistons of the stopped car. The traffic light clicks and turns off the red bulb, immediately switching to the green one. The car lumbers forward, as if groggily from sleep. Niskayuna is now officially awake.

I notice that the previously cold air has changed temperature as I walk back to the path; it has warmed up and been broken by the sweet smell of the exhaust of the car. The air now feels slightly used, one step closer to the air quality at sundown, which is a heavy, polluted, and corrupted mass of molecules. This air has a whole day ahead of it: people will be inhaling it and exhaling it, cars will be sucking it into their engines and converting it into greenhouse gases, and electric power lines will be making ozone out of it. But I have seen the air before it goes through all of these stages, in its pure form&emdash;untouched, pristine, wholesome, virgin, wild.

The return jog does not hold for me the same wonder and amazement as when I initially set out from home; it is no longer a quiet wonderland. Birds are now awake and chirping and small rodents are scurrying through the underbrush and leaves. My mind no longer thinks of the systematic beauty of nature; I am now dwelling on my schedule for the day, planning out several different possible routines, trying to select the most efficient one, much like a computer algorithm sorting data. I feel awake with my mind thinking. An electrical signal surges down my nerves and tells my legs to move faster. My jogging pace quickens to that of a run and I rush back home.

Arriving back at my house, I pause for a few last moments outside to take a few gulps of the relatively fresh morning air, before the day gets into full swing. Walking around the garden, I now hear cars crawling up to and around the traffic circle in front of the General Electric Research and Development Center, waiting to go through the security checkpoint. Letting my heartbeat slow down to its normal rate, I walk back to the garage and sit down on the landing, take off my shoes and go inside. The warm air from the heating system greets me with a hug as I tip-toe upstairs to take a shower. As I pass through the foyer, I take one last look outside through its window. It is truly fascinating to take a jog when the Earth is asleep, during the period between the night creatures' prowl and the daytime creatures' awakening.