Pond

The pond itself may be much too big for a noticing project, so today I’m going yo focus on the dock i’m sitting on. On my first tour of Dartmouth I fell in love with this pond, and dreamed of coming here often as student to take a mental break. There has been one problem however: there’s no where to sit. Everywhere is covered in shrubs and bushes, impossible to relax in. Today I found my sitting place. On the furthest side of the pond from campus, there is an abandoned dock that I can’t even imagine the intended purpose of. It is much too small for a boat to be on, and much too big to have any infrastructural purpose. It is even too low to jump or swim off of. It’s like the entire point of the dock was to provide a sitting place for a student 40 years in the future. It might even be older than 40 years as grass has began to grow at the far end of the dock. I don’t even know how that happens. The wood is almost greyscale, with the only color coming from the pine straw grass and algae it’s covered in. There are cigarette buds in many of the crevices, proving that it’s had use to many students and the past. There’s a single traffic cone at the entrance of the dock, with another fallen into the water, providing a question on whether I should even be here. As I notice that, I am deciding to leave, pushing my trespassing to the next entry.

Today I am fixing my focus on the color of the leaves. If I would’ve come a couple weeks ago, every leaf would be green. Now the trees are beginning to paint themselves in shades of red orange and yellow. I’m very curious to how this same landscape will look in two weeks; will the colors be more extravagant, or will the leaves simply not be on the trees anymore. I have never witnessed colors change, so I have no clue. Today it’s still mostly green, but I see potential of the autumn I’ve always dreamed of.

Why are leaves shaped? A specific leaf is really enticing me right now. It looks like an 8 bit video game heart. Almost perfectly resembles it. What could possibly be the benefit of a leaf growing like that. It’s facing towards the sun in the morning with its shape directing water at its roots. I can understand why the center would point down to allow this, but I still don’t understand why it’s needs to look like a heart. It’s a beautiful day today.

The Birds are out today. I hear so many calls. From graceful chirping of birds in the sky to the rude laughing of ducks in the pond, birds make a range of sounds. Why do birds sound so drastically different? What made them evolve to this point? The ducks today are all congregated in the center of the pond, and swimming very peacefully bonded together. It’s very different from the birds at home who have realized over the years that humans will feed them. Their belief that they can always live a happier life leads them to abandoned the peace that I see at this pond. This mimics how early civilizations felt about happiness, that we have no control over our happiness, so we must find joy in the peace of the world. I don’t think ducks can think about this type of stuff, but I wonder if more would be like the ducks in the pond if they could.

Today is one of the bluest skies I have ever seen. The cloud are perfect balls of cotton. You day like this come rarely, but it’s our expectation of what it should be. Instead of expecting it, I choose to enjoy it’s because it’s sick.

In the past week trees have evolved past a deep red to a golden yellow. This yellow is a color I don’t know if I’ve ever seen before. It’s so vibrant and radiant in the sunlight, exuding sense of warmth. How come when a tree loses its coloring pigmentation it becomes more vibrant that before. This shade of yellow is more obvious than any green I’ve seen leaves be. I don’t mind the color however, it’s truly beautiful.