When I first applied for the LRCC position at the SLA, the application asked for a short essay about an experience where I felt a meaningful connection with the environment. I’ll be honest, I initially struggled to come up with an experience worthy of writing about. I’d had plenty of experiences in nature, but I was at a loss when tasked with deciding what was most notable. When I finally did come up with something, it was an experience from my childhood that was at an (ironically) manmade lake, which, while it was meaningful, left me dissatisfied. I’ve occasionally thought back to that essay question, particularly my struggle in choosing a moment in which I felt connected to nature.
Since spending almost 8 months in the beautiful landscapes surrounding Squam Lake, I think I’ve finally come to realize why that might have been. Throughout the time I’ve spent here, some of my most memorable moments have been the most fleeting, seemingly unsubstantial instances. Lying in a hammock looking up at the blue sky and wind swept branches above me, getting a peek of the world from an oft-missed perspective. Watching the interplay between the moon-brightened snowscape and tree-cast shadows on a clear night, the cold air biting persistently at exposed skin. Diving with a swarm of perch and pumpkinseeds following you around to capitalize on the goodies thrown up from the sediment, and witnessing the occasional throwdown between fish and crustacean.
It’s moments like these where I feel the closest to nature. These little blips of experience all invoke similar emotions; tranquility, awe, aliveness. But I worry about just how fleeting these moments are. The other morning on my commute (re:walk) over to the SLA, I tuned in to my surroundings just in time to hear the exchange between two parties hidden in the trees. To my right was a tree whose branches were encased in the reaching vines of bittersweet, its tendrils wrapping their way all the way up to the canopy. Perched among the bright red bittersweet berries, a female Northern Cardinal was communicating with someone off in the distance.
As I watched, the unidentified companion came to join the female—a striking male, his brilliant red matching the invasive bittersweet berries. Watching the flirtatious dance between the two birds before they flew off into the morning lasted maybe 30 seconds, but the experience has stuck with me. The moments like these, which make me pause and pay close attention, are my most meaningful. But I often wonder, how many moments like these have I had that have faded with time? Instances that I didn’t write down in time, or that have slipped away after not being recalled against the steady onslaught of time. While I endeavor to write down the daily occasions that inspire those feelings of tranquility, awe, aliveness, it is inevitable that some things will slip away like sand through the cracks in memory over time.
While losing those moments to time is something I regret to think about, I take heart in the fact that there are more of these moments to be seen every day, so long as you pause and pay attention—windswept branches with trembling leaves dappling the sun's rays, crystal clear streams babbling over rock beds, cotton candy clouds dotting early morning skies. That’s what the ultimate goal of conservation work is to me—preserving those moments. Keeping alive the potential to notice them. The SLA is dedicated to conserving for public benefit the natural beauty, peaceful character and resources of the watershed. If not to notice the moments that make you feel alive, awed, calm, then what for?
Danielle is a second term, half-time member serving with the Squam Lakes Association. We appreciate her attention to detail and care she has been putting into the milfoil reports and establishing an LRCC social network. You can read more about Danielle here.