Mistakes

Sometimes mistakes lead to a change in the route home. Sometimes you pass on foot what you intended to drive by. As a person who cherishes routine and the expected, these times can be hopelessly frustrating. However, such a time happened to me while heading home last Thursday.

I have a five minute window of time following my last class to catch the three buses which head toward my apartment. I believe sarcasm and malice are behind the design of the bus routes which have them all pick up within three minutes of each other at the UGA library. I have waited, because I know myself very well, for the day that I miss my opportunity for a speedy and comfortable mass-transit ride home. That day was Thursday. As I looked at my tri-folded Athens Transit route map, I realized the next bus would not come for another hour. I had a choice. Wait the hour patiently while reading about the fall of the Aztec Empire, or take the next bus as close as possible to me and walk the remaining distance. Perhaps because my last class of the day is “On the Road,” I opted for the latter in hopes of a small but certain adventure.

I took the East Campus Express bus which dropped me off at the I-Fields parking lot. This left about a mile for me to walk home. I am a runner. The idea of walking one mile, or even five, is not intimidating to me. Generally, I welcome a good bit of exercise. I began my walk with the intention of looking everywhere around me as I went. I had never walked this path before. It was new, faintly exciting, and I enjoyed the prospect of having some quiet time alone and outside.

As I walked, I began to feel something crunching under my soles. I looked down and noticed something which stirred in me a list of contradicting emotions. The crunching was the sound of hundreds of acorns bursting under me. These were no ordinary acorns. The tops, or crown, of them are spiked and cover half of the nut, unlike the small, more subtle crowns which cap the more common white, red, or black oaks throughout Georgia. I looked above me and could easily identify which type of tree had dropped this very early sign of fall. The culprit was the sawtooth oak tree.  As a student of nature, I absolutely love trees. They are my favorite part of any day. However, as I looked down the sidewalk at the path ahead of me, I began to get angry. I saw thousands of acorns crushed and scattered throughout the sidewalk. The anger did not come from the dread of walking over the nuts. The anger came as I realized that every tree down this street, on both sides, were sawtooth oaks. They were planted by the city. I have no doubt they are carefully maintained and manicured. However, they are an invasive species of tree to America. Originally from China, the sawtooth oak drops its acorns earlier than any other oak in Georgia. I picked up a handful of acorns and continued walking.

As I walked, I began to think about my anger. Where does this come from? Why, since I chose the study of Environmental History, can I not enjoy a walk outside without getting angered by some small thing? The answer is that nothing is small to me. I see these acorns as trees, thousands of them. Sure, they were crushed under my Skechers, this time. What about the ones which take root, long before the white, red, or black oaks drop their seeds? What chance will they have in the span of a millennia to be as fruitful as the invasive sawtooth? We cannot comprehend a thousand years as humans. If a tree comprehends at all, time is a smaller scale for it than it is for us. This sight brought back all those doubts about humanity’s intelligence as a collective. We are willing to wipe out entire species of animals and plants for the sake of a few ornamental species. We have proven this to posterity time and time again.

As I walked, I broke apart the acorns and tossed their carcasses aside. I felt no anger, especially toward the oak. It is a fine and majestic tree. It is no less capable and deserving of a beautiful Athens address than any one of its citizens. However, it belongs in China and its acorns belong to Chinese squirrels. The burrows surrounding the oak trunks give proof to the squirrel’s duties. Like every other acorn, with the exception of the white oak, the squirrels bury sawtooth acorns for a later harvest. I can only hope that the squirrels keep their intentions and remember to dig every one of them up, consume them, and continue the dominance of our own native trees in the rolling Georgia piedmont.

As for me, sometimes I feel doomed to be angered by things which no one else cares about. I was walking behind a fellow student on North Campus. He reached out to the shrub to his right, picked off a handful of leaves, thumbed them for a minute, and then cast them to the ground. I thought, “What a waste!” He didn’t think at all. This scene will play out in my life on scales both large and small. I am certain of this. I am also certain that my heart will be full with unbridled passion for everything which breathes until the day I can no longer.