Sweat sticks my dirty plain white t-shirt to my back as the sun beats down from above. My sneaker slips as I look up to check the trail in front of me and I stumble, smashing my knee into the dirt. Ahead I see my next challenge, a crumbling boulder held together by a mesh of hard roots worn by many steps. As I mount the rock, ten year old me forgets the anger I carried with me ever since learning of the day's plans. Jagged stones angle up into the sky on both sides of the trail, dropping off to reveal acres of evergreens with an occasional highway cutting through the gently swaying pines. The cool wind soothes my face as I crest the mountaintop, red from the hour of climbing. The feeling of dread I held for the strenuous climb is gone in an instant, replaced by excitement and curiosity.
Throughout the early years of my life I despised the many walks and hikes I was forced to take with my family. The familiar paths and roads I had traveled hundreds of times gave me nothing but wasted time and sore feet. This feeling continued until our first trip to Maine. Visiting family already created a sense of excitement for my young self, but it wasn't until my first hike that I began to change my entire idea of the outdoors. Ever since that day I have yearned to return to the forest and experience the short hardened, windswept trees and rocky packed ground that I had fallen in love with.
The love that I found for the harsh dry terrain of mountains eventually led me to discovering the art of creating bonsai. Studying bonsai allowed me for the first time to express the excitement and wonder I first felt cresting that mountain peak. The thick trunks gnarled from years of harsh winds, twisted branches with small patches of needles packed together, mirrored by someone with a pair of hand pruners, wire, and ancient knowledge of an art form that has existed for thousands of years. I began to find inspiration in those traveled paths I so despised. Each tree that I had overlooked in my haste before, now held secrets for me to study, and a gateway into finding the beauty in nature.Â