A walk on the wild side

I have never exactly been one with nature.

Growing up, I had no desire to run around in parks, splash in puddles or make mud pies. I never even felt the urge to torture an ant or two with a magnifying glass (mostly because I was much too afraid). Preferring to stay inside with my crayons and coloring books than risk getting dirty and bruised, I was not what you would call an outdoorsy kid.

A large part of this is related to my aforementioned irrational fears of things that flap around and animate objects that are relatively 2D. I blame my parents.

When I was five years old, my parents took me to a museum where there was a special underwater exhibit-a room painted ocean blue with fish-filled tanks embedded in the walls and humongous cardboard fish cutouts hanging from the ceiling. The unusual environment was too much for my kindergarten heart to handle.

I kindly asked my parents if we could please exit the room, and when they said no, I switched on my cunning negotiation skills. I collapsed on the floor screaming until my mother could drag me out. I had nightmares of giant wriggling fish until the eighth grade (unless you count last night).

Unfortunately, nature has relatively 2D creatures that flap around in abundance. Though fish are the demons of the sea, there are also butterflies and birds, which get double the points. Two 2D wings mean twice the flapping and twice the terror. Bugs shaped like leaves are also extra horrifying if only because they are lying to us.

So if I am so easily upset by critters like fish, birds and bugs, you'd wonder why I enrolled in Dynamic Oceans, a class for which I had to go on a field trip to a marine lab where fish, birds and bugs were in plentiful supply. I wonder, too. It's probably because I am absolutely brilliant and always plan ahead.

But because I am ever the cheerful optimist (I hate my life), I decided to look forward to this educational weekend getaway. Nature couldn't be as bad as I remembered. And with that thought, I sealed my fate.

The weekend started out well enough, with a boat trip to an island off the marine lab. The island itself was magical. My group hiked through a Spanish moss-covered forest to the top of a large sand dune, revealing the most wonderful view. There were rolling hills of sand covered in grayish-green grasses. In the distance, we could see ponies grazing. And clusters of large bushes, the perfect size for little gnomes to dwell inside, were scattered about. I was sure if we walked a bit farther we'd spot a field of daisies made of rainbow smiles and kittens' kisses.

I was so moved that I was inspired to take a cell-phone picture and text it to my friend.

And then I stepped on a cactus.

Yelping with pain, I hopped on one foot as the rest of my hiking group ignored my plight and walked past. As I was apparently not particularly great at avoiding cacti on two feet, you can only imagine how that went.

With now two needle-impaled feet, I tried to hobble on the sides of my shoes as I desperately tried to close the growing distance between myself and the rest of the group while searching for a cacti-free zone on which to sit and pry the needles from my flesh. My instinct was just to sit down quickly and free myself from the pain, but while cactus needles in my bottom region would certainly distract from my throbbing feet, I was pretty sure that would not improve my situation.

Eventually I caught up to the group, which had stopped in the midst of an exciting discussion about erosion, and plopped myself down on the sand. Unfortunately, at this point, some of the cactus needles had decided to hold a party in my right foot, burying themselves deep into my flesh, probably a result of my failed side-shoe hobbling.

Why nature felt the need for this cactus shtick I have no idea. In my opinion, the whole situation was unnecessary.

I guess you can't capture natural beauty in a picture as I'd tried. I mean, obviously you can, because I did. But perhaps nature punished me, the anti-nature, because I did it with a sense of irony. Mother Nature doesn't like irony.

Well, joke's on her. Because those needles are still in my foot, and after all this time, and all that pain, nature and I are finally one.

Lysa Chen is a Trinity sophomore and wire editor of The Chronicle. This is her final column.

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