The post below was first written in November 2012 in honor of Maurice Sendak's death... I hope you enjoy it!
I was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, a city so high up in the Andes that it defies tropical stereotypes with a pretty cold weather year round. My life in this hectic jungle of bricks and concrete was almost completely sheltered from the wilderness and as urban as it can be. In fact, up until my late teens I thought that nature was something that occurred elsewhere, in far, almost magical regions of Earth that only filmmakers and national geographic explorers had access to. Yes… I am embarrassed to admit that before I went to college I could have sworn that the number of bird species in Bogotá could be counted in one hand… I couldn’t be more wrong. It turns out that Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world (ca. 1800 different species of birds call it home too!) AND that Bogotá, my supposedly barren home city, easily boasts over 250 bird species, many of which actually occur in city parks less than a few blocks away from where I grew up! I just didn’t know… I stumbled upon the wilderness by accident… after graduating from high school I was heading for a major in Economics but, as luck had it, I ended up being drafted to the army and took a 1.5 yrs detour from college instead. Part of my army days included a stint in the Sinai Peninsula, during which I managed to take enough time off to learn how to dive in the Red Sea. Through that amazing experience I discovered that maybe my ‘thing’ was more biology than economics. I say maybe because at that time I had no idea what biology really was, or what a career in it might mean. To be honest: it just seemed like the lifestyle of a biologist could be cool… My first year in college was kind of lame though. Not to belittle topics that I now appreciate fully but at that time, spending my days learning about the Krebs cycle and cell mitosis was about as exciting as donating blood… by my first summer in college I was beginning to reconsider. The life of adventure I had envisioned was just not happening… wilderness and nature were not feeling any closer. I got my lucky break in the summer of 1994 during a month and a half stay at a field station near La Macarena, Colombia. The station was everything I had been dreaming of: smack in the middle of the great Colombian outdoors, where the montane forests of the Andes meet the vast Amazonian jungles. Our nearest neighbor was hours away by trail and the nearest town was about 8 hrs up river. We had no electricity or running water and our days were full of critters, plants, smells and sounds that I had never even heard of before! Accommodations were humble: we slept on pressed dirt floors or hammocks, and there were no walls in any of the buildings. Life was beautifully simple and yet terribly exciting at all times. Baths were taken at the river, many times in the company of stingrays, electric fish and some pretty impressive fish with teeth that you wouldn’t believe! Our resident caiman lived just around the river’s bend and could often be seen sunning itself while we played in the water. [Long sigh]… it was simply amazing! Life was just so evident around us… animals fought, mated and ate one another in front of our eyes. Plants grew everywhere, competing ruthlessly for the few rays of sunlight that filtered from the canopy… to top it all off, every now and then a breathtaking animal like this little guy would show up and would make the world literally stop spinning for a second… [more sighs]... the life of adventure I had been longing for was finally happening and it was impossible not to notice. Even now, as I write, it is hard not to smile. My trip back to the city after this first jungle experience was a huge downer. I spent the entire 8 or so hours of my canoe trip wondering if I would ever be able to come back and trying to take mental pictures of every moment, every person, and every place... But then the weirdest thing happened. Having spent over a month learning to really see what surrounded me and discovering a few of the secret gems that the Amazonian jungle had to offer somehow changed the way that I experienced all of my surroundings… when I finally got back to Bogotá, the same old tired city that I had spent my entire life in was suddenly not just buildings and people but a space shared with hundreds of wild and interesting critters. Biodiversity materialized in front of my eyes as if by magic. City parks and the ubiquitous upland wetlands vibrantly revealed themselves to me with a beauty and extravagance that I simply did not expect. The joy of nature no longer existed just in documentaries or far away places. It was all around me, enriching my life and giving me purpose. It may have taken a trip deep into the Colombian jungle to finally open my eyes, but it had finally happened: for the first time ever, I was really aware of my surroundings. Mr. Sendak: I am happy to report that I now know that the wild things are all around us and that my life is infinitely happier for that. Thank you for helping me understand that this world can look and feel much brighter when we allow our ourselves to notice how magic it really is. Comments are closed.
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