The park near my home is a very special place. It’s an arboretum, a museum for plants and trees. A small, man-made forest, created from seeds of nature hailing from all over the globe.
The whole park is split up into sections based on what region of the world the plants or trees come from, and little signs litter the ground, informing passerby’s of the names of the various flora and where they grow. The trees and bushes are all spaced out in an even, orderly fashion and gravel or wood chip paths wind through the park, offering different paths to circle the grounds. Benches line the walkways and wooden bridges span the small stream that runs from one end of the park to the other. When I walk through it, I often see squirrels, geese and turtles scurrying, waddling, and crawling through the park.
The arboretum is beautiful. But, it is a far cry from the nature that I grew up with. The small valley that I was raised in was surrounded on all sides by high mountains that made you feel small no matter where you were. Mountains filled with lush pine forests and the reminder that humanity wasn’t here first. I often ventured into those mountains with my dad as a child, and the nature that enveloped me on those trips couldn’t be further from the well-kept order of the arboretum.
Up there, in the Rockies, the trees towering in all directions grow together so thickly that I would often lose sight of my dad just by walking a few steps away from him. The grass is long and wild, strangled with weeds, flowers, and roots. The paths are thin tracks of dirt, overgrown, often strewn with rocks and branches. If it isn’t the trees crowding in at all sides as you walk the hills and valleys, it’s the chest high grasses, the weeds, the flowers, and the bushes. Streams are more often rushing and furious than plodding and calm, bridges are rare, and animals tend to be heard more than seen. They know that humans are dangerous.
In the wilderness of those mountains, there are no signs and the paths don’t run in circles. The hundreds and thousands of trees and plants surrounding you go unnamed and unknown. The trails, unmarked and seldom traveled, feel endless, as if you could follow them into some new, fantastical world. The streams and rivers, tumbling down the mountain, uncontrolled and free, are like the pulsing veins of an untamed beast. All around you, life can be felt and heard, but it is cautious in revealing itself. This nature, unchained by human design, is vast, magnificent, mysterious and terrifying. It is unlike anything else in the world. It is the world, freed from us.
When I first brought my dad to the arboretum, a man who has lived much of his life surrounded by those mighty mountains and untamed forests, he scoffed at the well-spaced trees and bushes. At the neatly clipped grass and the careful labels. I understood his feelings. I know it isn’t real nature to him. I also can’t help but compare.
And yet, when I walk through the orderly, artificial nature of the arboretum, I don’t feel disappointed. The wilderness of the Rockies has an overwhelming majesty that can’t be replicated. It holds a wonder that is becoming increasingly rare. As I wandered it’s gravel and wood chip paths, though, I realized that this humanized museum of nature, this arboretum, has its own wonder.
As the squirrels, geese and turtles wander past me, hardly reacting to my presence, I can never help but feel amazed. The animals have no fear of being hunted. As I wander those circular paths and cross those wooden bridges, I find myself fascinated by that incredible variety of the plants surrounding me. I’m exploring the nature of the world. As I step out of the urbanization, out of the bleak, dusty, sagebrush covered hills and dry farmland of the place I now live, I can’t help but appreciate the beauty. This is my only window into the sublime nature of my past.
The arboretum contains elements of nature from every corner of the globe, and allows them to live in harmony with one another. It brings parts of many different natures to one place, where they can be appreciated and understood. That artificial, carefully ordered nature breaks down the barriers of uncertainty that make the wild forests that I knew so overwhelming, and nurtures a desire to understand the mysteries of nature. Most of all, it provides a place for we humans, surrounded by cement, and concrete, and dirt, to remember that the natural world is both beautiful and unique. That it is worth preserving.
“…This humanized museum of nature, this arboretum, has its own wonder.”
The park near my home is a very special place. It’s a pale imitation of the true, free nature of my youth. It’s controlled, ordered, and labeled. It doesn’t feel infinite, unknown, or full of wonder. But it’s become as beautiful to me as that breathtaking place of my past. For all its artificial order, it brings me a little bit closer to those grand mountains and deep forests I once called home. It makes me hopeful that we can live with nature without destroying it. It makes me hopeful that we can continue to appreciate it. It makes me hopeful that, maybe, we can even save it.