This is the title piece for my Thomas Wolfe scholarship portfolio. I thought that I would share:
In APUSH we
learned about a naturalist named John Muir who said that “nature is only ugly
if it is not wild.”
And while I
enjoy a scenic view as much as the next guy, I also think there’s something
alluring about the anti-salvation of urbanization—the way in which the concept
of unity is translated through white-lined wedges of parking lots, lamp posts
strung with stickered words, and city awnings dripping with rain.
I mean, we’ve
built tunnels in the ocean. There are buildings that scrape the sky.
I like our
world. I know we’ve screwed with it, a lot, but there’s not much we can do at
this point other than enjoy it the way it’s become.
That’s not to
say it’s not worth saving. And it’s not fair that he’ll be staring at beautiful
paintings in the sky while I’m staring at beautiful paintings on white walls
and we can’t be together.
Then again, all
nice sunsets are merely a coalition of empyrean hues and all works of art are
just systemic strokes on a canvas.
I’ve been to a
few national parks. I’ve stood in the North Atlantic and felt the sea swirl
around me, too baffling for any human to ever completely chart and comprehend.
I’ve been rural enough to lay outside and be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of
stars. I’ve seen whales in white-capped waters, I’ve climbed mountains, I’ve
been to famous cities and famous museums. Truthfully, though, I’d trade all of
it away for him.
I’ve seen him
sit in his dark room and think about the future, making caricatures with gentle
fingertips on his twisted premonitions.
The lacuna
inside of him was taking up space, and it sometimes felt like a leering villain
and sometimes felt like his best friend.
But here’s the
best kept secret I know: Life is still beautiful.
Sure, forests
burn down and whales die and cities collapse on themselves, and that sucks. But
somewhere in the world right now, a waterfall churns itself over a jagged ledge
and into a clear pool, cradled by a bowl of solid rock. And there might be
nobody there to see it. Even though violence and destruction may fulminate from
time to time, there is no abeyance of beauty in this world. Flowers sprout from
piles of rubble. Lightning leaves timeless scars on tree trunks. Nature’s
contumacious attitude creates magic in places it theoretically shouldn’t.
So do not lose
faith in our sad little planet just because trash litters sidewalks and
gas-guzzling cars circumspect tired old roads. Forgive the ignorance of humanity.
Forgive the forgetful, the broken, the tired, the lazy, the guilty, the lonely.
Forgive the world for beating the shit out of itself.
I forgive it
because he’s here, standing next to me, braving this capacious imbroglio we
have so ignorantly deemed “life.”
I’d still lay
quietly with him even if the world were literally splitting apart at the seams,
magma seeping from cracked slabs of rock and mountain tops tumbling into the
ocean.
