Final Nature Essay

Davis Donaldson

Professor Williams

Treks & Texts

12 December, 2018

When Man is Outmatched

Thunder Storm on Narragansett Bay, 1868

Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904)

When we speak highly of art such as a specific artist or a masterpiece we connect to, I often times hear that the art “spoke to them” in relation to the emotional impact of a piece of work. We feel so deeply about a singular piece of work that we experience something that transcends observation or admiration but a personal connection that offers new insight or reminds us of a particular experience. I have been fortunate enough to have visited many of the most famous art museums such as the Louvre in Paris, the Uffizi in Florence, and Vincent van Gogh’s collection in Amsterdam. While I admire Monet’s ability to paint stunning water lilies or van Gogh’s vulnerable depiction of himself in self-portraits, I have consistently lacked the feeling of having a piece of art that I felt profoundly drawn to.

As our class explored the Amon Carter Museum one Wednesday afternoon, I enjoyed the beautiful and unfortunately limited displays due to renovation. Many exhibiting the best that nature in art have to offer in America. In one of the last exhibits I observed, my eyes bounced from one painting to another, appreciating its style but not spending nearly the time it deserves. These painters spend countless hours to carefully craft their masterpiece, and I spend a minute or two skimming over its nuanced details. All of a sudden, I found myself attached to a particular painting of a fleet of sailboats with a storm quickly engulfing the open waters (painting seen above). Everything from the darkness of the sky and the storm’s slow progression to the beach that extends out deep into the water resonated with me. For several prolonged minutes, I stared into every detail of this painting from the body language of the individuals leaving their vessel to the boats point of sail. For once, I felt a personal connection to this painting in a manner that I have lacked experiencing previously. I did so because it brought me back to my last day as a camp counselor in the summer of 2017.

After a challenging summer of leading a cabin of 10 children for two months as a camp counselor, I found myself working my last activity period as a sailing instructor before I would head home the next day. It was a beautiful afternoon with clear skies, a bright sun, and 6-8 knots of wind. A picturesque day at Camp Sea Gull and perfect weather for sailors. Almost all fifty Sunfish Sailboats were checked out. They were tacking and jibing along the Neuse River, trying their best to sail upwind. The visual of fifty boats out on the water in one concentrated area either looks like a cohesive regatta to observers or a living nightmare for sailing instructors. The sails rising out of the water each possessing a different color created a rainbow display of boats maneuvering the wind and waters. The important aspect within all of this was the seemingly pristine weather with no indication of change anytime soon.

As the orange flag was slowly raised signaling boats to return and furl as activity period was over, the sky slowly began to dramatically change color. While the sky evolved so did day itself. It felt as if somebody was pulling the curtain on a sunlit window to cause immediate darkness. Oddly enough, the changing skies were only developing above our camp while clear skies were within several hundred yards. The eerie dark clouds soon began to completely consume us. The camp sirens started to blare, calmingly yet forcefully issuing campers to return to their cabin. As I was evaluating the situation, lightning struck the waters within 300 hundred yards. The bolt itself was like a vibrant zig-zagged etched line that hit the water with such force to only be followed with a deafening boom of thunder. The type of lightening that you would only see on the cover of National Geographic not your typical summer camp.

While the Armageddon was rapidly occur right in front of our eyes, one mustn’t forget that many campers were still returning their boats to mooring. As the first lightning struck and winds began to pick up, the head of sailing yelled, “It’s a black squall!” For those who are unfamiliar, a squall is a sudden storm that can develop in a concentrated area with little warning. The type of weather that is thrown around in sailing lore and seen in movies yet rarely used to describe the actual state of affairs.

The sailing head commanded us to run into the water and help any last children furl their boat and make their way to shore. Ten or so counselors sprinted down the beach and into the murky water like gladiators running into battle. However, this must have looked quite comical as running in water tends to create more splashes than actual speed. I soon located the first camper and instructed him to return to shore as I took over his vessel, easing his sheet and tying a rolling hitch to keep the sail in place temporarily. By now, the wind had exceeded a strong gust and was howling, and the precipitation had developed into an intense combination of hail and rain. The wind was roaring so fiercely that the rain attacked me horizontally. The drops and hail were not landing on my head but pelting me from the side like a never-ending spray of BB gun pellets that was turning my body a slight shade of red. Visibility was not even thought in the thick of the rain as I could not make out an object 15 feet in front of me. The only clearness was found in the lightning strikes that momentarily illuminated the sky like a light bulb flickering on. As I scanned the waters for more campers, I realized I was trapped in a magnetic landmine for incoming lightning bolts with fifty large metal masts rising above the water surrounding me. Our safety was certainly in the backseat as we attempted to tie down any boats from escaping back into the sea. I was soon reliant on solely my own previous familiarity with the surroundings to guide myself to any remaining boats.

After seeing other counselors returning to shore, I too headed back to the safety of the wet, sticky sand. The feeling of land was fleeting as the other sailboat mooring radioed in for help. We blindly sprinted several hundred yards to offer any assistance we could like soldiers faithfully carrying out the next command. Fearless of the consequences of being struck by lightning or caught on a line of a rapidly swaying boat, we were running on adrenaline and adrenaline only.

We headed to the Fly Scots Mooring. A Flying Scot is a large and wide type of boat that is affectionally known as a “floating bathtub”, meaning that capsizing such a vessel would be nearly impossible. When we arrived in the middle of mooring, the severity of the storm was soon reaffirmed as we witnessed a Flying Scott turtled. This meant that the boat was completely flipped with the hull floating above the water and the top of the mast wedged at the bottom of the river. We did what we could but found ourselves helpless and unprepared for a certainly unique scenario that was not covered during instructor training. This seemed to follow a common theme of collision with nature that all of us were not expecting. As the storm continued for the next hour or so, a powerboat was flipped and lightning quite literally struck a keel boat with several campers on board, but thankfully nobody was seriously injured or lost. I’d like to say we looked nature in the eye and said, “Take your best shot!” and lived to tell the tale. However, many of our boat were damaged beyond repair which feels like a life lost to a sailor.

As I reflect upon one of my most violent interactions with nature, I am clearly reminded of the lack of control that we have over nature as a whole when it comes to weather. Despite man’s innovation, there comes a point that I am sure many of us have experienced where we are held in the hands of nature’s wrath and path of destruction. Whether it be tornados, flash floods, or an earthquake, man soon becomes quickly aware of the smallness of his own self and grandness of the environment they inhabit. We experience this as we stand on top of the peak of a beautiful mountain or underneath the crashing of a waterfall into an abyss, yet there is a far different emotional rollercoaster one goes through when your life feels endangered. The feeling of profound appreciation matures into a respect that emerges from the fear of what damage can be caused in an instant.

Sailors are often times the most aware of their inferiority to nature. The uniqueness in sailing is how wholly dependent sailors are on nature itself. The biggest competitor is not other boats but the environment. You could be incredibly skilled or have the most advanced boat technology, but without any wind, there is no sailing. On the other hand, a sailor can become rapidly outmatch by the elements when a sudden storm strikes. For these reasons, sailors meticulously inspect the weather before and during their time out on the water in case of the unexpected.

            Reflecting upon the painting in the Carter Museum, I found myself resonating with the predicament of many of the boats in this painting. Like all sailors, I am sure they were aware of the weather and the forecast to a certain degree before they set sail. Yet, in the middle of their voyage, they were confronted with a storm that was unexpectedly approaching. Unlike beginners, they understood their boat could not outrace the storm as we see all of the boats heading to the shore. The storm is always much faster than we presume. Then there are the sailors leaving their boat stranded on the point, knowing full well that their safety was a higher priority at this moment than the protection of their boat. The disheveled beached boat is an important detail because it conveys the significance of the storm. A sailor prides himself in their boat simply because it is an extension of themselves and being forced to leave it behind illustrates the seriousness of the situation.

            The connection I felt towards this piece of work will be difficult to replicate because the painting resurfaced a certain experience that I will never forget. As I look at the painting now and continue to reflect on my treacherous last day as a counselor, I cannot help but be reminded that man will always be at the mercy of nature’s mood regardless of our own perceived preparation.

Nature Video Presentation

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBAAD266mTg&t=1s

For our final project, our group chose to reflect on how we could interpret the works of great environmental writers and academics within our personal world. Therefore, we chose to explore how we saw environmental literature on TCU’s campus; however, as we explored the topic further and further, we found that it became easiest to understand our authors by documenting where our society might have failed. It became obvious to explore our topic through a satirical lens due to the lack of nature present in the surrounding area. We chose to portray the idea of our society’s lack of concern for nature through a imagined, television episode of the series Treks and Texts. Within this context, we explored the works of N. Scott Momaday, Wendell Berry, and Bill Mckibben, as their ideas apply to our campus.

We began with a study of N. Scott Momaday’s theories within the environment of the Greek Village. Momaday was born in 1934 with a mixed heritage of Native American Kiowa and American pioneer. He wrote multiple books and essays on Native American and American pioneer interaction and how these two different groups treated the land which they both shared. We decided to focus our video on Momaday’s comments regarding improper treatment of the land. For this reason, we chose to begin at the Greek village -- a community gathering space for TCU’s campus. It did not take close observation to find that habitual destruction and carelessness was destroying the landscape. Laziness and disregard for our environment led students to run through the planted groundcover and make (quite literally) a human footprint.

Next we talked about Wendell Berry. Berry was born in Kentucky and attended the the University of Kentucky. He later taught at the New York University but returned back to Kentucky to live on a farm with his family where he could truly be one with nature. His work focuses on negative consequences of our consumer’s culture and its modern development. We chose to comment on Berry’s view by referencing Texas Christian University's (TCU) construction of the new performance hall. Not only did the hall represent the preliminary profits that would be derived from ticket sales, but also its construction resulted in a manipulation of the natural environment.

We then explored the writings of Bill Mckibben, who was interested in global warming. After working for the New Yorker, he continued his environmental activism by writing his first book on global warming. He then created many activist groups to draw more attention to the cause. As Mckibben spoke a lot about his time in his backyard, a forest with a creek, we chose to observe the creek in our backyard--frat pond. There we saw that, rather than nature being resilient, nature was destroyed and littered with beer cans and trash bags. Nature did not, unlike in Mckibben’s experience, recover from human abuse.

We surveyed the greek village, frat pond and the construction of the performance hall to show the lack of concern for nature present on our campus. Through this exploration we found that it was easier to find a lack of nature rather than nature in its own right. While we chose to display this message in a satirical sense, our concern for nature is prevalent and present. This class has taught us that nature is precious and should be treated as such. The TCU’s mission statement reminds of these responsibilities: it is our duty “to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens.” It is frustrating to see that this treatment of nature is neither ethical nor responsible. We found it ironic that we have spent the entire semester studying literature that addresses these problems on a national and global scale when our own community disregards rather than address these said problems.

Wendell Berry's Fear

Two weeks ago, I attended my first NBA game in several years. I absolutely love basketball, so any opportunity to go to a game is quickly seized. While my time at the Mavs game and the picture above might not be of nature, I felt that it properly conveyed what exactly Wendell Carter was talking about in his various writing pieces.

The afternoon before the nighttime basketball game, we read and analyzed Wendell Berry’s three writings as well as the unique life that he has lived. I was struck by how well Berry spoke to our consumer culture and lack of appreciation in the “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”, particularly, the line, “Want more of everything ready-made,”. Also, hearing this man’s story of moving back to Kentucky to grow and develop his farm to be seemingly self-sufficient was fascinating. After class, I reflected upon what a world or even a small community might look like if they followed the ways of Berry. Even more so, I speculated upon a society that continued down its way of desiring instant gratification and the same self-centered philosophy that Berry began his manifesto with.

            As I walked in the arena and sat down with several of my friends to enjoy the team’s shootaround, something bothered me. I could not help but be constantly distracted by music blasting, airhorns blowing, big screens blinding and lights flashing. Everywhere you turned, there was something or somebody that would take your attention away from warmups. Yet, as I observed the stands, the fans could not enough of it. They laughed at any silly animation on the screen or raised their arms in desperation as the Mavs mascot tossed t-shirts into the crowd. These same distractions carried into the game. Music blaring as the point guard brought the ball up the court and sound effects for every made basket. The fans were far more interested in the entertainment of the screen than the beauty of the game.  

I could not help but think this is exactly what Wendell Berry was writing to in the intro of his manifesto. He fears a movement away from the beauty of nature or even a game of basketball, yet the American consumer cannot get enough the status quo. Who knows if our own greed will diminish? I can’t help but think Berry is concerned as he cares to the needs of his farm.