A Young Person's Connection to Nature
By Karen de Leon
In Los Angeles, where I was born, there aren’t many places easily available to experience nature. Yes, there are parks but it’s not the same when all you care about is getting a turn on the slide and crying because you want an ice cream cone! And most of the time parents don’t have the time to take their kids down the street to the park because when they do, even if it’s a block from where they live, they just have to take the car.
When I came to the Bay Area it seemed so different because there were more trees than I thought could ever exist. Seriously, too much green for me to soak up in one day. I never really considered myself an outdoors kind of girl. But I have been very fortunate to have had the chance of rock climbing, biking at beaches, hiking the Grand Canyon, and river rafting. Sometimes just going for a jog at a local park can be a connection to nature.
Nature is something I can easily connect to especially because I love to write, and being around nature almost always inspires me. Everybody should connect to nature because if we're trying to go green, shouldn’t we know what we’re protecting? No one should say, “Oh I have no connection with nature because I don’t know how to hike or camp.” You don’t need to go out and camp to know how to connect to nature. If you love music, let nature sounds inspire you, and if you love video games, let nature’s amazing sceneries lead you to an imaginary place. Everybody can connect to nature; you just have to want to and to be yourself.
Let’s look through a telescope on a summer night to explore the brilliant stars, scuba-dive to see how the marine animals live, bike to feel the running winds pass our faces, sail just to see what the world has for us to see, rock-climb to see the Earth’s rigid ways and history, sky-dive to see the beauty of the Earth’s surface through the clouds’ eyes, kayak to listen to every sound of life in the water like a baby's movement in a mother's womb. Better yet, let’s get out into the fresh air and breath in a new way to look at ourselves, the world, and nature--our home.
Being outside is the only place where I feel like the impossible is possible and where I, in my mind, can soar to infinity, feet up to the sky. What calls me to nature is the feeling of being free and not in four walls. That’s why I love the Building Bridges to the Outdoors program, for making sure that everybody gets to go outside and be themselves in nature.
Everybody has his or her own reason to get outdoors. I know mine--what’s your reason?
Karen de Leon, 14, is a member of the Natural Leaders Network and the Girl Scouts of Northern California, whose “Water 1, 2, 3” program is funded by Sierra Club’s Building Bridges to the Outdoors. To learn more, visit www.sierraclub.org/youth and www.naturalleaders.org.
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