My Extended Experience

Braden Harrington

Dr. Daniel Williams

Texts & Treks

9 December 2022

Outside Lies Magic

            I sat on the rocking bench facing a small, man-made pond in my favorite neighborhood, listening to the passing cars, the ducks, and the fountain. It was odd, having spent so much time here, that I failed to recognize how the change of the seasons affected this specific spot. This bench had seen me through relationships and breakups, through quarantines and a “new normal,” and from the beginning of my collegiate experience to the end. As I sat there, I pondered many things. How had I grown in the past years? With the pond before me, not much had changed. Sure, the benches had been replaced once, but the deck overlooking the pond was the same. Like the pond, so much of me has remained consistent throughout college. My passion for music, my offbeat sense of humor, and my commitment to vulnerability in life have all stayed relatively the same. Perhaps like the willow near the pond, some of these things have continued to grow in me. As friendships began and I learned how to be a brother, I grew to become wise in vulnerability. As outlets for musical expression decreased, I sang for friends and recorded songs to challenge myself to keep growing. In these ways, the pond amid cookie-cutter houses stood as a testament to the unwavering, growing parts of me. 

            Standing, I turned to walk through the trail that led along the creek adjacent to the pond. In the heart of a congested neighborhood lay this small forest of sorts, a remnant of the world before cookie-cutter homes and newborns. As I walked through the forest, I reminisced on the parts of me in disrepair. This forest had been in pristine shape around three years ago, with clear pathways and semi-manicured grass. Now it seemed to be overgrown, overtaking the sidewalk, and hiding secrets under the mille-feuille of rotting leaves. I walked past the old painted stones, left by children during COVID to encourage the people who took walks through the forest. Even those stones were fading. A wistful sense of nostalgia overtook me, and I was transported back to another time. I remember walking through this forest, calling friends, and trying to escape the world around me. Imagination was one escape I used daily. Instead of facing reality, I would create small terrariums in my mind, memories of the past. Memories of the never-ending night with a friend, the feeling of the sun on my face in the spring, or the feeling of an old song heard the first time would flood my mind, and I would be transported away from a hard reality of death, stress, and sorrow. 

            Walking through these trees two years later, I realized that a piece of me was still in fantasia. The trauma of a pandemic has had a more wide-reaching impact than most would admit, yet I’ve felt it all the same. As I considered the positive parts of me that grew or remained the same with the pond, the overgrown timber caused me to reflect on the aspects of my life I was resisting growth. The imaginative life is only made poignant by the ability to act upon the deepest thoughts and dreams, to make something of the daydreams. I could get buried in all the fantasies and reveries like the fallen leaves, or I could choose to step through the forest, opening myself to the future ahead of me. Nature seemed to be guiding me on this journey of introspection. In this grove, I resolved to look the past in the eyes, to search below the leaves, and to continue my walk along the trail. After all, the act of taking one step is courage. Courage in this circumstance became writing songs and writing stories that reflected my interior, emotional self. No longer would I allow reveries to fester within my soul, but I would assign language to these thoughts and feelings. Learning from the past meant taking the emotional bull by the horns, accepting reality, and finding the meaning behind the sacred and the scary moments. I left the forest with a new resolve to pursue these goals. 

            The long walk that I took in November in Edmond, Oklahoma taught me much. Visiting my old stomping grounds free of technology or distraction allowed me to be taught by nature. To see the allegories within nature means looking beyond yourself and empathizing with the scenery around you. Although this practice may sound overly romanticized or nebulous, there is much you can learn from the world around you. The man-made pond and the overgrown forest in the heart of suburbia guided me on an emotional and spiritual journey of reflection. In a sense, I was discipled by God speaking through his creation, and the calm and entropy of nature reinforced the precepts of my faith. Nature showed me, through the unchanged and changing, what parts of my soul needed repair and what to be thankful for.