It seems that one begins a walk full of energy and curiosity, but as the road unfolds and feet begin to tire, the intensity wanes and one becomes despondent. Despite my disinterest in football, I found myself marching to the quarter with the rest of the city when the Saints won Sunday night. The entire night was filled with the sounds of constant honking, chanting, screaming and laughter. I was so amazed at a stupid football game's ability to unite a jaded city that I walked five miles home at 2am.
It seems that John Muir started his thousand mile walk with vibrant intensity just as I had. He was temporarily blinded in an industrial accident and was compelled to go out into the plants he studied in books, to experience them and be with them. He quit his job and societal obligations, just as I decided to not do my homework, and set out alone to follow his vocation. I, however, did not go alone as Muir had. Herein lies the difference of Muir and I's journey, besides the fact that his was 1,000 miles and mine 5: Muir went out to explore what exists without man and I went to explore how men come together. What Muir discovered though, was that nature exists with man just as man exists within nature. Rather than clinging to anger or frustration that man must always abuse nature, Muir saw that nature is enhanced by man.
Muir's walk did not tire him when he reached the subtropics. He caught fever and illness, yet his records of the walk only became clearer in the latter half of his diary:
When a page is written over but once it may be easily read; but if it be written over and over with characters of every size and style, it soon becomes unreadable, although not a single confused meaningless mark or thought may occur among all the written characters to mar its perfection. Our limited powers are similarly perplexed and overtaxed in reading the inexhaustible pages of nature, for they are written over and over uncountable times, written in characters of every size and color, sentences composed of sentences, every part of a character a sentence. There is not a fragment in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself. All together form the one grand palimpsest of the world.
It is in this paragraph that Muir's thesis lies: All of the aspects of nature form "one grand palimpsest of the world," or one shape with layers of view points. These layers create different readings, different interpretations despite the fact that it is unchanging.
It was also near the end of my walk where I began contemplating how many hours I could sleep and finish my homework. But, then I realized how much I would miss this city when I leave. I realized in the darkened streets that even in the silence of the early morning, this city remains alive. But, all in all, every place appears different. Yet, if we were to explore and experience more of the world, we would begin to see that we all share the same sky as Muir points out. Even when the sky is different or the winds change their language, it is merely layer of words. Thus, all the different cities, ecosystems and biomes are different words, different layers overlapping and entwining over one earth. Our perspective of how to read it, how to see the earth, will change depending on where we are peering in from.
New Orleans has a certain magic to it that I do think I will miss despite my plans to run away and teach ESL in Europe. I will, however, find something written in another language, another impassioned aspect of a community no matter where I go because there are no fragments in nature; there are only repeating patterns.
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