I am at my grandmother’s house, sitting on the deck overlooking the pond. My feet dangle just over the water, where water striders dart around. Further into the pond, my dog jumps through the water. The field stretches out until it reaches the Three Sister Mountains in the distance, and I see my brothers and cousins fixing our bikes. I can feel the expansive sky above me and the deck below me.
I am at the geology station at Camp Angelos Outdoor School. I am sitting in front of a group of sixth graders, all wearing their woodcookies with pride. I am holding a laminated paper onto which a simple lesson plan is written. We are crowded under a tarp listening to a slow drizzle of rain. A variety of rocks are spread out in front of us. I can feel the cool breeze on my face and smell the petrichor from the soil.
I am sitting in my kayak in the middle of Timothy Lake, the water is deep and clear below me. I see Mount Hood ahead of me, peeking out from behind the forest. I hear children playing in the water and feel the weight of my paddle in my arms.
I am at Camp Angelos, standing by the bluff overlooking the Sandy river. I can hear the field instructor talking to the sixth graders while I wait to be assigned my group. I feel the cool air on my skin and I hear the rushing water below me. My backpack weighs on my shoulders, and my woodcookie rests on my chest. The living trees tower above me, the fossilized forest stands out of the cliff below me.
Camp Angelos has a tradition on the last night we spend together. Every student who chooses to participate will bring a small amount of soil from a place that is special to them, then all the soil is mixed together, and a tree is planted with that new soil containing moments special to all of us. That tree will build roots deep in the soil, intertwined and connected with all of the other plants on the forest floor.
Like that tree we plant, I take every moment in nature to let myself grow roots. The roots don’t only connect me back to nature, but also the people I build experiences with. My Grandmother's house connects me to my cousins, and the summers that we spent together. The lake connects me to my family friends, and our yearly camping trip there. Outdoor School connects me to other student leaders and the sixth graders we taught. When I feel myself becoming stressed in my everyday life I will find the time to reconnect with nature, and the people that I have built roots with. Standing firmly in my roots I am growing forward to my future, where the sky is the limit
