Note: This essay was originally written in the summer of 2016, following the completion of a three-week study abroad program in China, an experiential / environmental high school class, and a yearly vacation with my family.
I’m laying on a hard, wooden dock, shivering from the unanticipated cold under a threadbare blanket. My shoulder aches, my back is sore, and intuition screams at me to return to my real bed in the cabin fifty yards away from this small lake in northern Wisconsin. It’s 2:30 A.M. Yet, I’m smiling. Grinning, really, sleep-deprived but content, having recently made the curious decision to sleep out on the pier, nothing but the blanket, a pillow, and a flashlight in tow.
The night is perfect, cool and crisp, ink-black sky covered by a canvas of stars. As I look up in awe, my mind wanders to other places, other times, times when my soul was filled with the same kind of wonderment over the world we live in; a world in which a person, no matter which uncomfortable dock they choose to rest on, will always look up at the same twinkling masterpiece.
I was fortunate enough this summer to have undertaken two major trips, the first with Watershed Wisdom around our very own Milwaukee River Watershed, and the second to Beijing, China through CIEE’s service program for environmental action. I suppose this could be called the summer of travel for me, as I’m currently writing from Door County and will be flying out to New York City within the week. It was a dream come true to have been able to travel like this, and it has most certainly led to some unique experiences.
Interestingly enough, I was free from the constraints of the internet world in all three of the former places, one of the major reasons why I was able to connect so deeply with both the people I met and the environment surrounding me. As I found through the many late nights playing cards in our Beijing hotel, and the endless laugh-filled, riddle-riddled (most of which I still haven’t figured out, for the love of Leopold!) campfires along the watershed, it doesn’t take a magical, electronic world to feel connected to the people around us. It simply takes good friends, an open mind, and the acceptance of the environment we find ourselves in. Going into the summer, I didn’t expect to find such a genuine and profound love for the experiences of the trips, nor did I envision such real connections between them. But, I guess it’s true; nature is the best teacher.
The time is now 4:45 A.M. I’m climbing up a small mountain known as “The Thumb” in the rural Wangfujing region of China, located outside of Beijing. Our small group has been dutifully trekking up a weathered, overgrown dirt path for nearly an hour. I’m hot, sticky, sweaty, and mustered only three hours of sleep before our hike. Yet, I’m on Cloud Nine (which may or may not be made out of pollution due to China’s crippling environmental issues…).
We are nearing the highest peak of the Great Wall in the area, just in time to watch the sunrise. Suddenly, without warning, the path ends, and the trail that has snaked ruggedly up the wild, overgrown mountain gives way to one of the most beautiful sights I could ever imagine. We have reached a small platform next to an ancient, squat, guard tower, which humbly looks out over the incredibly vast expanse of hills and valleys profiled in the pre-dawn light. Although there are no stars visible on this characteristically hazy morning, I can feel my breath taken away by both the grandeur and the history of the place. Man and nature have a clear connection here, if not a juxtaposition, and I am once again awed by how small this Wonder of the World really is, a single calligraphic stroke across the paper of the land.
Yet strangely — or perhaps not so much — the relationship between them feels almost symbiotic, as if the wall and its surroundings have formed a grudging respect for each other over the millennia; and I wonder if, in centuries past, a young Chinese guard ever took a break from his post atop the mountain and sat like myself, feet dangling off the platform, looking out over the endless landscape and wondering simply about his place in the world.
Time jumps back about a month and a half. The time is now 7:30 A.M. Straddling my bike, I take a deep breath and look around the SHS parking lot at our small group of adventurers, nervous but beyond excited to head out into the great unknown of the Milwaukee Watershed. I watch as our parents pull away one by one in their cars, a separation likely even more difficult for them than us, leaving us to the great challenge of the next 11 days, a call to the wild that is finally coming to fruition. Little did I know how quickly this journey would change me for the better, how easily one hundred miles of cycling, a ferocious rain storm, and the adventure of a lifetime could alter me forever…
A journey of a thousand miles, or so it seemed.
The memory, fresh as the sticky, black oil propelling the many, endless cycles of my bike chain.
Now two days have come and gone. I sit, I rest, picturing the wind, the rain, gusts whipping across my face, droplets streaking madly over my skin and under my pulsating tires.
On.
On.
On.
But, as all journeys must, my heroic cycle of cycling did come to a close, for there are always more journeys to undertake.
So, after all, memories in tow, I march…
On.
Simple joys. The modest but beautiful complexities between three very different places tied together in memory by common threads. As I reflect on this once-in-a-lifetime summer, I see that, alongside the bonfires, riddles, and late-night cards, it is the positive power of nature in connection with our shared humanity that unites us. I feel the pull to revisit the Hamburger Haus, to trek back up “The Thumb,” to lay on that absurdly uncomfortable dock once more, to again separate, initiate, and return, although I still don’t feel I’ve ever really left any of them.
And I’m reminded of a quote, a simple lyric from Jack Johnson’s song Upside Down, yet a perfect encapsulation of these treasured experiences, and life-changing journeys: “We’ll sing and dance to Mother Nature’s song… I don’t want this feeling to go away…”
Jake Marble 