Pine park field

I would say I am pretty self-aware of my destructive habits: from myself trying to stay up late and study and end up scrolling on my phone to listening to sad music on purpose to feel an emotion. Aware yet I always embrace my "imperfections" as I think life's too short to be having a stable life. That loose self-awareness also informs my ability to observe, to pick up on but also cling to niche and somewhat “contradicting” images and imagery.

My subject is Pine Park, particularly the large field before heading into the large forest with the DOC house right across. I arrived in the afternoon, the time when the sun should be bright and guiding. I, instead, found myself blinded by how bright things were: every time I opened my eyes, my whole world was tinted blue, as if I were in the middle of an ocean. Simultaneously laying on the wet grass under the big sun and drizzling rain, my skin was burning from the sun but my body was shivering as my fit was slowly soaked. With one’s sight blocked and a bodily sensory overload, only a photographer or performative influencer would have stayed as for the stunning scenery: while the sun was just starting to set, the moon had already gone up clearer than ever in the middle of a blue, cloudy sky.

A seemingly uncomfortable situation, yet I love every second of the ocean blue sunlight, the hot and cold afternoon drizzle, and the cloudy day sky with a moon. I embrace the contradictory nature of it the way I embrace my sad and emo playlist that I play on repeat to feel more human, to not be numb by emotions. I also embrace it the way I wear my long hair and always moisturized lips while hitting the gym weekly.

The experience makes me think about who decides what is contradictory and the diverse spectrum to the seemingly binary nature of things. And it leaves me with a Duc that holds less authority for others’ lived experiences and a Duc more open to see and learn about new things.

I have always loved walking. I told my friend a year ago that I might not want to ED to Dartmouth because the campus is smaller than a lot of other schools, meaning I might have less safe walking space and I might walk less to all my classes, and that somehow will lead to me having a high chance of getting depression. But I discovered the trails and the DOC, effectively kicking off all other rival schools. Hence, I unmistakably love Pine Park and also the journey of walking to Pine Park in itself, with the wind, the ruffling leaves, and just the scenery that would be perfect for one’s Instagram recap.

But somehow my love for the experience was carried away by my thoughts of how I can string my experience into words, but more importantly turn it into a readable and poetic piece. I lay on the grass with my field notebook, a phone, and an online dictionary.

There was this thud and there was this scream that said “produce something,” “look at that,” “that seems pretty boring.” I traced my thoughts to find why I was like this. Was it because I need to turn in something for professor Alan Taylor and that if I ask for an A at the end of the term it would not be weird cause I had multiple pieces in the noticing project? Maybe, but I brought my phone and intended it to be a resting Saturday so also a maybe not. Or was it my conditioned habit of turning every experience into a social media post, every experience and every location into a bite size piece to share to the world? Also a maybe but highly likely.

I had a flashback to all my fun hangouts over the summer that I regretfully had not taken a picture of to post on my summer recap and now some friends might think they are unimportant to me. I had another flashback to when my micro-influencer friend would film me driving her on my motorcycle to post on her story about how she missed her ex, who used to drive her around the city rather than directly complaining to me.

I would argue that whether I am addicted to posting or not did not decrease my total utility of the trip to Pine Park that day in the sense that my experience might have been better if I was to be more immersed but then I got some sick pictures and writing for my poetry account and Instagram recap. Yet, my long-term and stable utility surely is compromised in the sense that what if the sky was not as pretty that day? What if I have a writer block on some days and now my visit is totally ruined? Why can’t I just be present, to take in, to destress, to engage and just be?

Pine Park gave me a foreground of nature and for where my technologies were in the spotlight. I left with a Marxist, Fidel Castro, George Washington vision of using my phone smarter and to have more autonomy over it than it has over me. Or at least, I hope so.

My visit this time to Pine Park had similar features to my last two: cloudy blue sky, damp grass, and soft, warming rays of sunlight. The difference to this visit was my choice to lay directly facing the sun.

I grew up in a tropical climate: kisses from the sun and arms that have 3 color variations are the usual, if not to say they had become part of my identity somewhat. I love a pink-tone sun: soft and warm, perfect for picture; and I also love an oil-for-frying sun: caramelizing me in all the right places. It is these types of heat I learnt to defy myself by: warming, (com)passionate, and always-seem-to-be-in-a-rush for new experiences.

I lay on the grass and just let the water seeped into my sweatpant. Falling leaves, slowing heart rate, and the dropping of my eyes. The sunlit plant floor of Pine Park with the howling wind is my little Vietnam beach in Hanover. I was, however, awoken by this irritating, skin cutting slash of the cold, accompanied by my half wet and half-sweaty body from the direct sunlight.

Oh how I wished there were to be a portal that can transport me to the nearest shower so I can shower all the heat and water away. It was like having a thousand ants crawling on you while having a fever under your skin.

Somehow, I kept doing similar things to myself. I tried mac n cheese for at least 10 times already before deciding that I only love the aesthetic of cheesy food, not the food itself. I tried to sunbathe directly just to learn the hard way the value of sunscreen and some eyeshade. How do all the hot girls do it, honestly?

I ponder how many aesthetic values I hold that I secretly hate or to say mildly, not fully fond of but so conditioned to it. Do I like pink and feminine clothing? Kinda, but more in the sense that I can make my parents mad, and rebel for my personal freedom than to make myself happy. Do I still love the sun? Yes, but I will not sleep under it or at least bring something to cover myself.

But among all those thoughts, I know I will continue to carry out a lot of things I secretly hate, yet love the aesthetic of: being somewhat a performative activist online, studying and reading certain subjects while being a lazy chud, exploring my self-expression more boldly at the expense of my safety, and being under the sometimes-warming-sometimes-burning sun,... Because somewhere along the line I had come to realize that I do not only want to live for a life of full happiness and positive utility but I also want to live a life that is meaningful, with struggles and difficult in solidarity with others and a life that is also care-free, to be in the moment, to lay under the sun and to live life without all the calculations.

I think it is fair to say that life for most people sucks in some sense. So it’s rather counterintuitive to try to purely maximize our happiness and run away from the sadness, when some of them are inevitable. What’s more sound is to cope, to romanticize, to buy into some social construction of norms and meanings. Rationalizing and thinking too much might make you go crazy, at least that’s what my jealous aunts tell my mom whenever I have an academic achievement.

On a less moody, just-for-a-walk visit to Pine Park, I have some cool observations regarding the environment and deep dives into information about grass. Firstly, the bright sunflowers are now dying as autumn begins to settle in. If you only have them in your view, it can feel like being in a dystopian black-and-white coloring book from Coraline. Secondly, I ponder why some grass patches look so different in the field: in color and in shape. Through some research, I found that when grass is mowed in different directions, it looks different to the eye due to the difference in the reflection of light. Hence, this is how some of the grass on sports fields and lawns gains its distinct colors. But also, there are many types of grass rather than just a single one.