The sit space I chose is a small area on the lake; during the first semester, I would spend a long time out there so that I could write, but I’ve only spent an hour or two total this semester due to the weather and my own inability to be out in the cold for too long. The space consists of a single bench, back legs touching the grass behind it as the front touches the walk way; maybe it’s just my own love of analysis, but the bench seems to be a perfect symbol for a bridge between nature and urbanization. There are trees that would cast shade with their foliage when it was warmer - now the branches just hang overhead, barren - and the lake’s water brushes against the rocks that slope into the waves; the water is currently icy and cold, and snow blankets itself over the grass. The only animals I’ve taken notice of are birds flying overhead; occasionally one will land and peck around before taking off again, but most simply flutter onward.
I think what’s most attractive about the space to me is that even though there are obvious human installations - the benches and walkways - it seems oddly removed from human disturbance; the water, the plants, and the animals all exist naturally and in harmony with one another. It’s nice to be able to remove yourself from a more urban setting and sink into nature. The sit space by the water is something that I think is important as well; it shows not only that there are still some places that are preserved, but also that it is possible for humans and nature to coexist without one overpowering the other - this ties directly into Braiding Sweetgrass.
Other people, I can only assume, would use this space in a similar way to myself: to escape, albeit briefly, from a space where humans trample over their environment. It’s a space where we can temporarily listen and learn from nature; I use it to write. I think that there’s something magical and indescribable within the sounds that come from the earth and I think that this is partially what draws us back to it, no matter how removed we think we are; the feeling that exists whenever we hear the wind whistle gently over a field or crickets hidden within the brush. Oddly enough, I think that animals also use this space in a similar fashion; they’re also trapped by human spaces that have driven out nature and it makes sense that they would flock to spaces that have remained intact despite human intervention.