Nature, through my eyes, is a beautiful landscape filled with mystery and excitement. It’s really the only place where I can find myself. I don’t know whether it is the red fox cubs or the fresh pine that gets me, but I just can’t get enough. Growing up in the suburbs of Cleveland, it is difficult to find a natural sanctuary or a place to call “my own”. However, I was fortunate enough to have relatives that lived in the country whom which I stayed with several times a year. West Virginia, 273 acres of territory waiting to be discovered by my brother Ben and I. As we traveled the mountainous terrain, we saw wild horses, coyotes, deer, and wild boar. These trips to West Virginia really showed me how to think on my feet, connect with my brother, overcome obstacles, and ultimately become the person I am today. The beautiful parts of nature are what everyone comes to see, but the underlying facts are much more dismal.
The mountains kill people, the oceans drown people, and the creatures of the forest kill people. Once the light goes down, it’s a completely different place. The wild is nothing to take lightly, it is to be respected and there is a code to live by there. When my brother and I got lost in the woods for 3 days, we had to adapt to it. When it was light, we tried to figure out how to leave, when it was dark, we had to figure out how to stay alive. Wolves, coyotes, snakes can all be of danger to a 10 and 12 year old boys.
Naturally, we made it out alive although it was the scariest experience of my life. It taught me valuable lessons however. Never venture to the unknown without your presence being known, and most importantly, when you sleep they come to eat.
I will love nature everyday till I die. It is the only place where you can feel alive and completely dead at the same time. You don’t matter in nature, nature doesn’t favor you, it doesn’t care where you’re from or how much your parents make. You have to live in nature, and stop letting others live for you.