Fall Becomes Winter, Winter Becomes Spring, Spring Becomes Summer

It’s hard to believe that a year ago the thought of my departure from my parent’s house in Oregon to the dorms at Evergreen State College in Washington was looming over me like the shadow of a threatening thunderstorm. Now, as I sit cross-legged on the floor of my childhood home after returning from my first year of college, that version of myself a year ago seems like an entirely different person. I was terrified, anxious, and unregulated. High school hadn’t been fantastic for me, and the thought that college may be even worse made me apprehensive even to try.

The first quarter at Evergreen felt like a culture shock. Coming from Bend, Oregon, a town that is expanding like an old barrel filled with water. A town built from lumber, the only town where trees sink and rocks float, and the remnants of volcanic eruption line every road and yard. A town surrounded by conservative Eastern Oregon, where lifted trucks flying flags roll coal at me as I walk along the roadside, and the people inside shout words I dare not repeat. A town surrounded by beautiful waterways, rolling hills, cinder cones, and towering mountains that attract every millennial in a 1,000-mile radius who has a bike rack on the back of their Subaru Outback and spends the weekend exploring micro-breweries. Coming from Bend, Oregon to the woods outside Olympia, Washington to an eco-brutalist school smaller than the population of my high school. A school where the majority of students have hair in shades only mantis shrimp can fully experience. Where ravens follow you to class as long as you follow them into the deep expanse of the Evergreen woods afterward. Almost immediately, this bubble of green started to feel like home.

I began trying to learn everything I could about the land I was now living on. Who lived here before? Who lives here still? What about the plants? The animals? The water? My classes at Evergreen proved to be an integral stepping stone on my journey to understanding (a journey I am still very much only at the beginning of). Through studying, exploring, and experiencing, my sense of place increased. Almost every day after working at the on-campus childcare center I would walk a trail I could soon complete with my eyes closed to Geoduck Beach- the strip of rocks and mud that line the section of the Puget Sound Evergreen resides on- and scour for quartz, jade, and agates. Every Friday I would carpool about half an hour outside of Olympia to a Victorian-style cabin in the woods where my herbalism mentor lives. My peers and I would drink tea, and learn about the medicinal and spiritual significance of plants we would begin to recognize as our friends. Through academic research, firsthand experience, and a greater understanding of my innate connection with the land, both biotic and abiotic, my connection with the land I was only increased exponentially.

Winter quarter was when the storms really began. Herbalism class focused on medicine making. Warm next to the wood stove we created medicines to aid us during the coming cold, wet months. Days spent baking warm treats with friends as rain pounds the window outside and wind snatches tree branches and downs spindly alders. The sun begins to set at 4 pm, and it’s dark as I walk home from work, leaving no opportunity for expeditions to the beach. A cold settles into my bones, and I begin to realize that no matter how much I try to dry off, it’s like the damp lives inside my lungs. I’m sick a lot, but I’ve heard that’s normal, all my friends seem to be sick as well.

While this weather may seem abysmal, I’ve always discovered I thrive during the cold, wet, dark days. My creativity was bursting, and I needle-felted more than I ever had in my life. I also met a new group of friends, and soon I was spending every night at their dorm, cozy on their couch. If the fall quarter was about introducing myself to the land, the winter quarter was about introducing myself to the people who live on it. Friendships strengthening, and new bonds are being made, full of warm tea, warm food, and warm feelings. 

When colonizers first came to the Sound, they mistakenly believed the Coast Salish people were lazy. In their long houses and great big houses, tribes would swap stories, share songs, and create artwork during the winter months. Because of their understanding of the land, they recognized that winter was a time of stories and creation. Because of how harsh the weather can become along the sound, spring, summer, and fall is when all the preparatory work takes place, all in harmony with the rhythm of the salmon returning to the rivers. Having lived along the Salish Sea for winter, I understand the need to hunker down with the people you care about during the winter months more than I did living in the dry cold of Bend. When the weather begins seeping into your clothes and into your skin, the need to warm your heart with good food, good friends, and good art becomes unignorable.

And soon, the sun began reappearing. Going weeks at a time without even catching a glimpse of the sun is almost unthinkable in Central Oregon. It’s difficult to go longer than a day without the sun showing its face here, even during the cloudiest weather. The feeling of a beam of sun filtering through your blinds in the morning after being greeted by a gray sky for the past half month is an unexplainable one. In that moment when its light graces your face, you feel as though you too, are a part of the sunbeam. For me, the first glimpse of the sun halfway through March left me feeling shaky and light-headed. It was at that moment when I realized I should probably start taking vitamin D supplements more regularly.

While my woods explorations definitely didn’t stop during winter, they did become less frequent. Unable to visit every day, I would settle for only crossing the treeline a couple of times a week, each chance for a couple of hours each. But now, as the green began returning full force, I found myself unable to stay away. I will admit, there were several occasions when the sight of blue sky outside the window in the lecture hall enchanted me to such an extent I would leave class early to sit by a stream, walk barefoot through the duff of maple leaves, or climb trees in the Evergreen woods. I had never seen so much green in my entire life, and its spot as my favorite color has never been more affirmed than when I walked through a jungle of towering Bracken Ferns that were small fiddleheads a few days before. 

Friends and I would spend days at lakes, picnicking surrounded by daisies and dandelions, lounging by streams, and walking along shaded paths into what feels like another world. I don’t think my heart has ever felt as full as it did when I was walking barefoot through the Evergreen woods on a green, spring day.

But May becomes June, and Spring becomes Summer. Half of my friends are still in Olympia, and half have dispersed back across the country until the Fall brings us all together again. I’m still looking up every plant I see that I don’t recognize. I’m still walking barefoot every chance I get (although, the lava rocks do tend to make it difficult). And I’m still talking to my friends as often as I can. June becomes July, and I know before I can fully  process being back in Central Oregon, I will be in Olympia again come August. But for now, I am content eating dinner with my family every night. Seeing my brother before he moves to LA in a month to play for the Junior Kings. Being greeted every morning by the smiling face of my sweet dog, and the warm hugs of my parents.  I can say confidently I am incredibly happy with how my life has turned out this past year, and I know that Lilah a year ago would be so relieved to hear that.