Journal #1- Restorative Environment and Your "Place"

I am excited to be taking this class during the summer and with a professor that seems to be passionate about what she is teaching. I am also glad that I am taking this class this far into my education rather when I first started at FGCU. I feel it will make a difference now that I have grown academically and professionally. I feel I have grown as a person and a student and will view this course much more in depth than when I first arrived at FGCU. I think I will very much enjoy this course because we will be able to experience nature outside of the classroom rather than simply through a screen or book. I know I will end this course knowing more than what I knew and appreciating more of the natural world!


Oahu, Hawaii
The first thing I think of when I think of appreciating nature and feeling restored is when I visited Oahu, Hawaii on vacation! I will never forget how peaceful, beautiful, and relaxing this place was.

I remember seeing the mountains covered in green and thinking "How on Earth is something so beautiful this natural!"

 It was a moment to reflect on how there are bigger things than us humans and how these amazing mountains, trees, rocks, plants, and even the sky didn't need us humans to build any of it just as we build skyscrapers and bridges. The Earth is able to do something so magnificent on its own!

The mountains looked as if someone had draped a green fluffy blanket over a giant rock and the blanket just fell in the perfect places and crevices of the rock. It was also amazing how the sky came together with the top of the mountain, it was the most peaceful I have felt in nature!


Playa Sucia, Puerto Rico
Another place I  visited on vacation that has allowed me view nature as a peaceful setting was in Puerto Rico. I had never seen the endless ocean without any interruption of boats, buildings, or such things. Standing on top of this magnificent rock the earth had made alone and watch how the waves, the wind, the sun and nature took place was overwhelming. I loved listening to the waves crash, it seemed like many different conversations taking place at once, except these conversations were messages of peace and tranquility.

 

 

Walking the Boardwalk

I must say that I do often find myself looking at the different plants, trees, water, and animals while walking the boardwalk from garage three to Merwin. Although I often get the urge to just stop and watch a bird or sit and listen to nature itself I never do. I think that I am almost ashamed and embarrassed as to what others may think of me enjoying nature as if it is taboo. I think nature has become something so distant and unknown that it feels as if we are doing something so out of the ordinary and we don't want to get caught doing it! Just two days ago I saw a squirrel on the boardwalk and thought it was "cool" and began to take out my phone to take a picture of it, but before I did I looked behind me to see if anyone was coming before I got "caught" enjoying nature. I felt as if I were doing something weird and thought what would others think? I continued to think of how something so natural could be unnatural.

I do often wonder if many enjoy walking the boardwalk and how many feel that sense of peace and relaxation. Are we all secretly enjoying the walk on the boardwalk hoping someone will admit they love it first in order to break of our own secret for the love of nature? 

 

 

No Access

I often think of how much technology takes of our lives. I have seen myself how I rely so much on simply my phone for EVERYTHING! When I don't have access to internet on my phone or my phone alone I almost feel like I'm missing something and can't function the same. It's easy to say that we don't have to use our phones or we don't have to be so attached to technology, but now a days it is so difficult to do anything without technology. The truth is that is it sad that we have to rely so much on technology that it has become the center of everything we do and we are. I was raised in the time when I used to play outside every day with the kids in my neighborhood until the sun began to set and I often wish I could or would do that more often. I think simply enjoying the outdoors is a great stress reliever and I wish I would take the time to do more outdoor activities. Even on airplanes if you are not able to use your phone you can watch a movie or play games on your phone, ipad, computer, so we are still connected to technology anyway! I think we all have a deep love-hate relationship with technology and how it revolves around our lives.

 

Relieve the stress and relax...

 I think one of the times that I purposely left my phone behind in order to enjoy nature was on our trip to the Diamond Head National Monument in Oahu. Diamond Head is a crater that is about 300,00 years old and is super amazing! The hike up to Diamond Head took about four or five hours and although it was a little hot and the walk was a little difficult on the way up we enjoyed it so much. When we first began the hike my husband and I didn't think we would make it all the way up since we had never really gone hiking ever before, but we learned that we loved it and we made it all the way. The view from the highest point of the crater was amazing and like nothing I had ever seen before. I must admit it was a little scary to think what if we rolled down from where we were, but sitting at the top of the crater and watching the endless ocean and how it outlined the island of Oahu was breathtaking and it was impossible to think of anything else except how beautiful nature is so and how much it is needed in order for us to just release stress. It makes you think as if nothing else matters and your problems seem so small and unworthy of the space it takes up in your mind because there are bigger things out there like a crater and the endless ocean who continue to live and take place regardless of what else may be going on. It is an amazing feeling what nature can do if only we could take more time to see what it can really do for us instead of looking at it as what it cannot.

 

 

Sense of place called home...



 

This is the closest I come to nature and where I call my sense of place. There is nowhere else I feel this comfortable, safe, and relaxed. Although I have seating outside my lanai I tend to often sit on my couch next to the glass door to feel the sense of nature. This is where I sit to do some reading or to release some stress. Somehow just sitting here makes me feel like I am a part of nature although I think in reality its not. Perhaps the thought in my mind of almost being close to nature and seeing nature from the inside out tricks me to say I love nature even though all that I see has been placed by man. Have I fooled myself into biophobia instead of biophilia? I unconsciously have placed all of my biphilia outside of this glass and concrete box where I unnoticeably extended into biophobia. The sense of place is perhaps has me safe from the natural and more into the unnatural.

As much as I would like to think that my own community has placed nature to surround us I never have believed it! I feel like I am being fooled when I see man made ponds with homes sitting a few feet away. The sad thing is that most of the time we come here, to the man-made pond, and trade it for the real nature and natural thing. we sit by this big hole in the ground that we replaced with homes, a swimming pool, and sidewalks and we call it nature. I wonder if its better that we have these things than if we didn't. If we didn't have such things would we even bother to use a sidewalk or go outside to at least breathe a breath of fresh natural air? Somehow and in some way I think its a fifty-fifty situation, we have to fake it in order to have people, like myself, enjoy nature.