WRITING NATURE: 
DISCOURSES OF ECOLOGY

The room is chilly and as I step out of bed, I hear only silence. It is the middle of January and the signs of winter are all around. Whereas in the summer the birds are so alive with their incessant chirping, in the empty trees and lonely branches they are nowhere to be heard or seen now. It's still dark as I step outside. The snow, having fallen the night before, lies untouched by human feet and mechanical plows&emdash;a glistening white covering sparkling on the ground unscathed.

I look into the distance and just as in the Christmas rhyme, there is not a creature stirring. I wonder if the animals around my home have all left for the winter&emdash;to their homes further south, or perhaps they have burrowed in the ground. I wonder if I might be able to do the same: escape the cold, the wind, and the snow by moving elsewhere to a milder climate. Yet I realize that this is my home and as much as I dislike the inconveniences of the winter snow, I cannot ever leave&emdash;it has become a part of me. This is where I was born and where I hold some of my most precious childhood memories, many of them winter memories: from building my first snowman, to sledding down the hills with friends.

I stand outside in the frigid temperatures. A fierce wind blisters my hands and ears. Even my winter jacket, gloves, and ear mufflers are not enough to keep me warm. I look down the driveway and know that I must clear the snow so my parents can go to work in a few hours. Our driveway is not one of those simple straight up-and-down driveways; instead, it curves around and makes the shoveling area twice as large. As I settle into the task ahead, I know it would be easier if I used the snow blower we have, but today, I instead decide to use the shovel. The shovel is lying in a corner in my garage and I cannot remember the last time I have used itl it has not been touched since a year ago when we bought the snowblower. Picking it up, I feel as if I am leaving my world of technological gadgets behind, and returning to my own strength&emdash;though it will take me longer to finish. But today, I am not rushed to finish; I don't feel that sense of urgency.

I walk out of the garage and see the horizon light up with the first sun rays. The wind blows mists of snow that swirl in the air, partially obscuring my vision but also adding to the almost surreal surroundings&emdash;enhancing the tranquility that beckons me to do what I must, but quietly. I feel as though I am living in a perfect moment: the rays of the sun are just coming into focus, all is silent except for the wind brushing through the trees, every breath of fresh air&emdash;unfiltered through the ventilation systems&emdash;gives me a sense of rejuvenation, and all around, the untouched snow indicates I have not yet affected nature's work. I listen to the silence for the last time before I begin to pluck away at the flawless white landscape.

I hear the plop then the rasping of metal against the buried pavement as I take the plunge and shovel away the first line of snow on the driveway. A blackbird appears in the distance as if to confirm the breaking of serenity. The sun begins to come fully into view rising through the tree limbs and houses that dot the horizon. The blackbird ascends into the sky with a screech and surveys the land for food. It flies into the sky and its shadow appears upon the glistening snow. As it flies nearer, I can make out the distinctive shape of its beak and a blackness that so starkly contrasts with the whiteness all around. My street, like any other, is lined with streetlights and there is one on our property. The blackbird lands there, as if to watch my work for the morning. I stare at it for some minutes longer and its eyes shine like glistening drops of water&emdash;I wonder what it is thinking. Is wondering where to stay for the winter&emdash;did it miss the migration south with its friends? Is it silently watching my presence as if to monitor my encroachment on nature's work? I do not know and its eyes provide no clear answer.

Reminding myself of what I stepped out to do, I return to the shoveling. Almost rounding the corner of the driveway, I am about one-third finished. Last night's snowfall was not too heavy and the sun is already beginning to turn some of it into slush. I hear the gentle trickle down the street gutters. From the sky, onto the ground, the snow melts and returns to the earth; everything it creates, nature returns to itself.

As I am busy shoveling the snow, I hear a person approaching with a steady crunch, crunch, crunch of the snow. I look up from my work. Her head is covered by a hat; her ears closed by mufflers. Her breath enters the frigid air clearly visible as puffs of white clouds. It is the same jogger I see every morning when I awake and go outside to check the daily newspaper delivery. We do not usually exchange words, but merely gesture with a nod or wave; there is a certain pleasure in the regularity that is held between us&emdash;an acknowledgement of one another's presence without a verbal welcome. As she jogs down the sidewalk, her footprints echo the fragility of nature: the snow that was once smooth has been imprinted onto her shoes, and I can imagine that when she returns home to the warmth and leaves her shoes on the drying mat, this snow too will soon melt and return to whence it came.

Yet it makes me wonder about our other effects on nature that are not nearly so simple: the cars we drive emit toxic fumes, the paper we use requires countless trees, and even the snow blower I could be using right now entails precious fossil fuels for fuel. The sound of a jet engine challenges the silence and slowly, like the blackbird, the airplane grows larger as it nears me. The plane's exhaust creates a trail across the sky, as if to make the plane's presence more permanent for those who might not catch a glimpse while the plane is in view. I know it is transporting people to some destination, some traveling for vacation and others for business. I stare into the sky and realize that the plane is another one of our many conveniences. It is one we could do without, but we have grown accustomed to the ease of travel it offers and accepted that its exhaust, fuel, and raw materials needed for construction are an acceptable price to pay for the speed it brings to travel. The conveniences we enjoy are costly&emdash;to the extent that we cannot imagine in our microcosmic, immediate view of the world.

A sudden drift of wind shakes loose a pile of snow from the oak tree that overhangs a portion of the driveway. Some of it lands on my head and I immediately feel its chill as fragments fall on my neck. This oak tree has been around as long as I can remember. In the summer I climb its branches and see how high I can go. It is my escape from the world: high within a shield of branches and leaves, I overlook the landscape and can see clear past the elementary school baseball diamond, down the road to the stop light, and past the houses in my neighborhood. I feel a sense of release from the world and am free from the troubles on the ground. There is a family of birds that lives here. They return year after year. After the winter snow has passed and the flowers are slowly returning with their vibrant colors, I can hear the birds sing as they once again fill the air with grace and the ground is abuzz with the young ones seeking food. But there is none of that now&emdash;the coldness of winter has broken the leaves, scattered the birds to the south, and made it too cold for me to remain much longer outside.

Finally, I reach the end of my driveway. The sun, now higher in the sky, does little to warm my hands and feet, which have all but lost the sense to feel cold. The cold reminds me how fragile we are: too cold and we shiver; too hot and we swoon. Sure, we have our homes with heating and cooling; we have our technology to counter the elements. And yet we are still dependent on nature for our survival: the food that comes from plants and animals, the shelter constructed from wood; the air that we breathe. So why do I feel this urge to run and embrace the warmth inside, the comfort of heating or the relaxing feeling of a shower, when my instincts tell me that where I truly belong is with nature? I know that when I escape to the world inside my home, I am using the technology, whether the heater or simply the electricity for a light bulb, that will harm the very thing I need to survive: nature.

I walk back up the driveway and survey my work for the morning. Water trickles from the snow at the edges of the driveway down onto the road; the clouds return and partially obscure the sun; the winds continue to burn the exposed flesh of my face, and where I started shoveling, there again is a fine covering of snow. I put the shovel away. There is a low rumbling and I know immediately what it is: the city snowplows. The blackbird that has watched me all this time atop the street lamppost cocks its head and looks towards the sound source. He turns back to me for the last time as if to say, "Your creations are at best temporary conveniences"; he knows that the snow we shovel away would have melted naturally without our intervention&emdash;but we need to have the streets cleared immediately, don't we?

Or is it that we really need the air&emdash;the very air we are polluting when we operate our snowplows to conveniently clear the roads? He knows that only a few weeks later, or even several days from now, there will be more snow, and again, we will place our temporary conveniences above our more crucial needs. He flies into the distance, over the elementary school baseball field, over the houses in the distance, and finally disappears into the gray sky as a speck disappears on paper if you blink.

The rumbling grows nearer and the snowplow comes into view with its flashing orange lights as if its sound and relentless progress weren't enough to warn people to be cautious already. Unyielding, it pushes through the snow on the street and dumps the snow off to the side. When the snowplow passes my home, it pushes the snow back onto the entrance to my driveway. But I am not the slightest bit concerned. Instead of picking up the shovel again, I walk out and onto the sidewalk. Where I am going, I don't know. I hear the flow of water from the melting snow. I hear the crunching of snow underneath my feet. I know the snow on the driveway is only temporary.