{"id":1499,"date":"2019-04-16T02:05:08","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T02:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/?p=1499"},"modified":"2019-04-16T02:05:08","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T02:05:08","slug":"returning-to-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/uncategorized\/returning-to-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Returning to History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Walking I remember how my therapist always suggested to walk<\/g> in the woods to clear my mind.\u00a0\u00a0Apparently nature can help mitigate my feelings of depression.\u00a0\u00a0I go back and forth about believing him.\u00a0\u00a0Sometimes it is nice to be in a space where I am free of my obligations, free of the voices in my head. Here I can just listen.\u00a0\u00a0While sitting down on a fallen sycamore tree, I listen to the rhythm of my heart beating in my chest as it slows to the pace of my breath.\u00a0\u00a0I can hear the wind whistle as it passes through the trees and its leaves.\u00a0\u00a0I can hear the birds calls to each other as they bounce off the trees and echo in the air.\u00a0\u00a0I hear the grey squirrels scurrying along the ground, hopping over the roots of the trees looking for acorns.\u00a0\u00a0The most distinct noise as I sit here is the hairy woodpecker.\u00a0\u00a0It attempts to hollow out a part of an oak tree. The banging of its beak reverberates around me.\u00a0\u00a0I try to find its red cap, white belly and<\/g> black and white stripped<\/g> wings.\u00a0\u00a0I have no such luck.\u00a0\u00a0Through the reverberations of the woodpecker, I can hear the song of the hooded warbler.\u00a0\u00a0I look up trying to located<\/g> its distinct vibrant yellow colored belly and head with black everywhere else.\u00a0\u00a0I thought the yellow might stand out in all the brown of the trees. I have no such luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes being in the woods can be overwhelming like a wave is crashing down on me, and pushing me to the sandy bottom of the ocean.\u00a0\u00a0My mind races and thinks of all the sadness in the world.\u00a0\u00a0Am I doing enough?\u00a0\u00a0As I keep walking, I again come across the huge Tulip tree. I remember this tree.\u00a0\u00a0It is large and rich in history.\u00a0\u00a0It is here that I feel a wave about to crash. It is here that marks a part of what was the underground railroad.\u00a0\u00a0When I learned about the underground railroad it always felt so far away from where I was in elementary school.\u00a0\u00a0The 1800s felt like eons ago, but now I see how it only just occurred.\u00a0\u00a0I used to think that everyone was equal. Growing up I was hit with the realities of the world.\u00a0\u00a0The fight for equality is not over.\u00a0\u00a0Systemic racism is embedded into our society and we keep growing around it instead of flushing it out.\u00a0\u00a0It is like a tree when it grows around the pollution that we leave. I once saw an image of a bike way<\/g> up high in the trunk of a tree.\u00a0\u00a0The tree consumed the middle of the bike leaving the ends hanging out.\u00a0\u00a0The tree thought that it could prosper but the bike only hindered it.\u00a0\u00a0Racism is hindering our society from succeeding and\u00a0we are complacent.\u00a0\u00a0As I keep walking I see an eastern box turtle roaming.\u00a0\u00a0It moves slowly past me flashing its beautifully electric orangish yellow and brown shell.\u00a0\u00a0I watch as it begins to eat some grass.\u00a0\u00a0I smile at how calm it is as it lollygags through the woods at its own pace.\u00a0\u00a0It has no worry about pollution or racism.\u00a0\u00a0It is only present here in the Guilford woods as it eats.\u00a0\u00a0I take a breath and let my mind settle before I continue on my way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walking I remember how my therapist always suggested to walk in the woods to clear my mind.\u00a0\u00a0Apparently nature can help mitigate my feelings of depression.\u00a0\u00a0I go back and forth about believing him.\u00a0\u00a0Sometimes it is nice to be in a space where I am free of my obligations, free of the voices in my head. Here … Continue reading “Returning to History”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1505,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions\/1505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}