Emily Bee
I’m sitting on my bed watching Netflix, which is usually where you can find me if I’m not scrambling to finish an assignment or at work. The title sequence comes on “Supernatural”, my favorite show of course. As Sam and Dean Winchester are on the hunt again to figure out why the angels all fell from heaven and reverse it. I can’t help to always think what if all this is true and is actually happening in our world without anyone even noticing except a select few? Naa, I quickly snap back to them speaking to their friend and also an angel, Castiel, who has found more information on angels forming alliances to get back to heaven. Pause. My phone buzzes. It’s an Instagram notification saying I have a new follower so I might as well see who it is. A casual check then turns to a 15-minute scroll through my home page. Oh, an advertisement for a free pizza from “&pizza”, interesting. Everyone seems to be at the beach, lucky. I then realize I need to finish this episode before I start getting ready for work. Holy oil set on fire can trap an angel, hmmm interesting. My mind gets sucked back into the fantasy of mythical characters and trying to stop the end of the world.
As I walk from my home down a busy road to the Winkler Botanical Preserve, I can’t help but always wonder who decided to put a large preserve smack in the middle of an apartment community? The entrance is hidden down a winding road and it wouldn’t be hard to believe that the community has completely forgotten about it. I walk in and it’s like I’ve entered into another world. There’s a large pond. I can see huge frogs popping their heads in and out the water to take a breath every few minutes. There’s also a strange looking bird, I’m not sure I’ve seen anything like it before but that’s the beauty of being in another world. I continue to walk further and further into the trees and come across a very old bridge, right beyond it is a group of fawn (three to be exact), staring blankly at me. I presume they haven’t had much human interaction since as I came closer, they stood their ground. I’m alone here, I haven’t seen one soul besides the wild animals and again I wonder if people even know this magical place exist. I continue on my stroll and come to a large hill, which I of course climb. As I reach the top, I see a little waterfall, its man-made but I guess it’s the thought that counts. After gawking at the mini engineering marvel, I see a sort of ropes course and my curiosity gets the best of me. I walk towards it wondering if the preserve staff ever use it for activities and camps but all I see are some old signs, so I assume not. There’s a little dirty body of water that I walk around for a few minutes. I can see this long stick perched at the mouth of the teeny tiny pond and them BAM! It strikes at a fish that was entering the water from the larger pond. I notice this is no stick but in fact a very big snake. As it swims toward me, I decide that it’s time to start heading home as my fight or flight instinct was sure to set in soon enough.
Through this experience I really noticed how much more stimulating it is to spend time outdoors rather than inside. An hour walking through a nature preserve feels like a much longer time compared to an hour watching Netflix. I see how it is so easy for people to get sucked into the world of electronics and social media. Watching a show, I can pretend that I am in another world, but when going outside I can actually be in that other world and explore it. With just 15 minutes on social media, I felt tired of seeing everyone’s posts and all the advertisements. I can see how someone can get caught up and jealous of other people by just looking at their pages and wishing they were that person. Social media sets unrealistic standards that everyone wants to meet but no one can, besides the rich and famous. People can get so caught up with it that they just forget to go outside and just get some fresh air.