On Finding My Safe Haven in Plain Sight

Upon entering the final semester of my senior year of college, I decided to branch out and learn more about topics outside of my comfort zone. While looking over the course catalog, I fell upon a course entitled Reading the Ohio Landscape, a course dedicated to exploring and gaining a deeper understanding of the environment around us particularly as it relates to the terrain in Ohio. As an Ohio native, I was intrigued to learn more about the areas I reside in and to explore the environment that I often felt I knew little about. On the first day of class, we were handed a small yellow field notebook, and given the instructions to find a location within Kenyon Colleges landscape to observe for the duration of the semester. I was initially daunted by the task, how would I find a location that felt meaningful to this assignment? What criteria was there for finding a good location? What felt the most natural place to observe?

A few days after receiving the task of finding a location, I grabbed coffee with a close friend. At this point in the semester dine-in eating was closed [due to COVID-19] and students could be found eating out of styrofoam boxes in nearly any location on campus. On this particular day, my friend and I decided to sit at a picnic table near the heart of campus. I had never found myself, in my four years at Kenyon, at this picnic table before. We sat and debriefed our weeks, and the concept of finding a location for my class's semester-long project came up in conversation; I expressed that I found it difficult to find just one location that felt worth giving such a large portion of time to. And like clockwork, it came to me. Looking just past my friend and up into the leaves of the large ginkgo tree behind her, I realized this was the location I had been looking for. It was beautiful but understated, manicured and kept up by the college but overlooked by students as they passed by it on their way to other places. This was where I wanted to spend the rest of my semester, under the branches of these trees, observing the terrain and seeing what new ideas it might bring to me.

In the first few weeks I found myself frustrated, my location was beautiful but it was nearly impossible to avoid other people while observing here. As the location is right off the road and next to the sidewalk, there were near constant outside noises that seemed to distract from the natural ambiance of the land. I was mad that I had chosen a location that felt so open, that seemed to invite people to enjoy it; I found myself wishing I had chosen a place more secluded. Rather than focusing on why this place was inviting so many, I was becoming bitter that it was. I longed to have these trees simply belong to me in the moments I was observing, rather than to others and the surroundings that they were in. During this time the leaves were full, they were green and welcoming; they seemed to usher in the essence of summer with their branches extending upwards towards the sun. This period of time was filled with green, and the area was well shaded from the sunlight that poured over; this period was filled with green and with hesitation, and it was filled with a sense of unknowing and longing to understand the nature of these trees.

October ushered in a season of change, and while I had initially been drawn in by the extravagant ginkgo tree and the pressures of a semester-long project, I was finding myself becoming comfortable in a space I had once been ignorant to the existence of. As the leaves on the surrounding trees were changing colors, such was my attitude towards the location. I was becoming heightened in my observations, honing in on little details and bigger pictures, and I was becoming far less concerned with the noises from the individuals passing by. Watching the leaves change color felt like a gift, and I was honored to see it occurring and to be able to take the rightful time to watch it occur. The process by which the leaves change color is a fascinating process, in which the leaves gradually lose their color due to a loss of chlorophyll. This is due in part to the rain and lack of sunshine that is experienced during this period of time, causing a lack of chlorophyll and a brighter production of fall leaf colors. This process is gradual and takes place throughout the season, with an increase in the loss right before the leaves fall off the trees. The different colors of the leaves typically have to do with what pigments are lost in the plastids (a type of organelle in plants, that is responsible for many different roles including the plants metabolism) of leaf during the aging process; for example, leaves that are a yellow hue typically are a result of a loss of Carotenoid pigments being lost after the chlorophyll in the leaf is taken away. The leaves at my location ranged in hues prior to their departure off the branches of the trees, but ranged primarily from light greenish yellow to a red toned brown. This reddish brown comes about as the result of the synthesis of anthocyanin pigments in the leaves, occurring right before the leaves are ready to depart their branches.

By mid-october to the end of the month, the leaves had begun to drop off the trees. After changing their hues they had begun to die and fall from their home branches. I always found it interesting the way we as humans admire the change in hues and dying nature of the leaves in the autumn, the way we were celebrating the demise of a once beautiful and lively thing; why were we celebrating something that we find so morbid in other creatures? After careful consideration and admiration while observing, I began to recognize the beauty for myself in these leaves. And while they were dying in a sense, they were dying to be reborn later, and to preserve the overall life form and body they were once sprung from. It was found that leaves with anthocyanins act as a protector of the chloroplasts in the leaves, these chloroplasts are vulnerable during autumn as the chlorophyll’s are taken apart. Due to this protection that the anthocyanins provide, there is a higher chance of the tree reabsorbing the nitrogen that has been set loose during the chlorophyll breakdown. This leftover nitrogen can then be utilized by the plant in the spring, while producing new leaves and growth. Knowing that this process was taking place as an act of self preservation rather than self destruction, I felt a sense of comfort in watching the leaves fall from the branches.

When I arrived at my location during the later half of the semester, the leaves were completely off the branches. I stepped through piles of their discarded bodies, each one harboring a different summertime memory; and I was reminded of the initial feelings I possessed in this location. Weeks and hours had passed since that first encounter where I drank my coffee and tried to understand the allure of this spot; since I had taken my first field notes documenting the leafy green color of the ginkgo tree and the way the branches on the trees diverged in multiple directions from the base of the trees. I wrote of how the surroundings had inevitably been at the location prior to the buildings that were constructed around them, and reflected on how maintained the area had been. At this point, I looked at the piles of leaves and wondered why they were left to rot on the ground, no care taken to clean them up and even less given to the trees whom they had fallen from. I knew in my mind that these piles of leaves were actually benefiting my location, the nutrients left behind by the organic matter would soak into the soil beneath giving life to the soil's ecology. Bacteria, fungi, and parasites would clean up the dead matter and the soil beneath it would benefit greatly; this in turn would help the plants in the area to prosper. However, while the leaves were dying, I was left wondering who would care about this place once I left it- I was becoming emotionally attached to a location I had once been a stranger to.

Now, four months later, and after completing a semester’s worth of field observations at the location behind Seitz House, I am humbled in saying that I have found a safe haven in my little spot on campus. The trees now stripped bare of leaves, leaf piles removed and soil sustained, and the table still standing prominently in the center of this little burrow; I look upon this site and reminisce on my first interaction with it, coffee in hand, and the leaves of the gingko tree pulling me towards it. It feels like saying hello and goodbye to a friend, all in one breath, and that’s how I know that I have found a location that will forever remain important to me, even far after I’ve left its embrace. That’s how I know that someday, maybe someone else will care for this place just as I do.

References:

The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature. Haskell, David George. Pgs. 222-229. Copyright 2012. Penguin Classics.

Plastids - definition, types, main structure and function. MicroscopeMaster. (n.d.). Retrieved December 14, 2021, from https://www.microscopemaster.com/plastids.html

The Process of Leaf Color Change. Harvard Forest. (n.d.). Retrieved December 7th, 2021, from harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/leaves/process

The Biological Significance of Leaf Color Change. Harvard Forest. (n.d.). Retrieved December 7th, 2021, from harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/leaves/biological

Why leaves change color. CP Lab Safety. (n.d.). Retrieved December 14, 2021, from https://www.calpaclab.com/why-leaves-change-color/