It’s strange to go for a walk in the Natural Lands in February without any snow. The ground is softer than usual, the air is humid, and it smells too much like dirt and decay- like the smell of wet leaves in the fall instead of frozen winter pine. While the wrongness in the air is palpable, it’s also still the same, in many ways. I can always count on change. 

Having spent the majority of the past year studying away from Minnesota, I had traded the familiar sights of slow-moving river water and algae-saturated ponds for red beach sand and thick glacial ice. The parts of the world I saw were far and stunning, but I found myself missing the environment that feels so familiar to me. 

Now that I’m back on the Hill, a lot has changed. There are new friends, new experiences, new things to learn, and a new routine. Still, despite the mud on my boots instead of snow, I’ve been aching to get outside. Each step I take down the windmill trail echoes with memories. I can hear laughter from midnight hikes with friends, words from books that I read start to finish on the fallen log in Heath Creek, and the crash of white-tailed deer leaping through brush on Saturday mornings. The sun has been timid, this February, but today it was generous enough to peek out from between the trees. I tip my chin in thanks and let it warm my cheek. 

More memories greet me as I walk, like the time I convinced my friends to go stargazing only for it to be mostly cloudy, and the time I was caught in a quarter-sized hail storm, but was rescued by two strangers who drove me back to my dorm. I pass the hill where my foot slipped on loose rock freshman year and I hobbled back to my dorm with a bloody knee. I pass the tree where I watched a squirrel stare down a red-tailed hawk in total stalemate. The path ahead is getting muddier, and my feet are starting to be sucked into the Earth with a distinct pop. I pause.

Quiet finds me, and I listen. 
The whisper of wind across the prairie. 
The rustling of a squirrel in the leaves to my left. 
The steady hum of Big Ole: a heartbeat.

The Natural Lands have always been a vital part of my life on the Hill. Plenty of discourse exists on a ‘sense of place’ and how our identities become bonded to our natural environment. While I’m not sure I have anything profound to say on the subject, I do think that we are as much a part of our environment as it is a part of us. All we do is change. 

If this February you’re feeling the effects of too little sun, too little sleep, too much stress, or too little time, you’re not alone. Look at the squirrel digging next to you. Look at the crows calling above. Look at the trees, limbs quivering, roots unshaken. Look at the creek still running. Look at you, still walking.