Personal Narrative Essay: A Walk At Highland Park

My walk along Highland Park surrounded by with the water’s quiet flow that moves through the land, separating the two sides that were once connected. The waterfowl escape the heat of the sun by swimming happily with the current and in the process, diving to catch lunch. Trees are scattered all over the grass, soaring high above the ground creating homes for those who live by the sky. The dirt, leaves, bark, and water create the smell best classified as Earth, enriched by the uprooted trees from Mother Nature’s wrath. An old giant lay across the water connecting the two sides once again, similarly to the synthetic bridge conveniently located before the trees begin to hug the road.

On the other side, when I entered the solitude of the trees,

Insects crawl, busy gathering food, skirting footsteps, and scrambling over debris. Squirrels climbing the trees for safety from my trespassing, pause their frantic movements until the outsider passes. The wind shifts direction, the sound of machinery begins to play, the wildlife flees. I hear the snapping of limbs crack loud enough to silence all that’s around. Machines roll in cleaning the damage from Mother Nature’s fit. Saws make limbs shorter, more manageable, and chippers shred them to bits. Trucks and machines disrupt the peace and neutrality of the surroundings, polluting the oxygen with colorless odors choking the freshness from the air. Moving with the current in the opposite direction, the air becomes cleaner and the noises soften to hushed tones of clean

Manufactured buildings, transportation, and innovations need room to grow, humans expand by conquering what does not belong to them. Storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, wildfires are nature’s way of taking it back, of starting fresh. The circle created by Mother Nature is simple: birth, survival, and death. Both nature and humans start with birth, survival is encompassed with growth and discovery, death is removal of the old and decaying for a new birth, and so the cycle repeats. Just as humans give life to future generations, nature gives life to new species. New generations create new discoveries, regrowth freshens the air and life of the once destroyed. The beginning sets the path for what is to come, what is to be discovered, what is to be destroyed, and what is to, eventually, be