Home Is Where the Sky Is

Good ol’ Crowley, Texas - home of the Crowley Eagles and home of me. My friend recently told me she wanted to visit my hometown. “Be prepared to be underwhelmed,” I retorted. Crowley has some of the best people I know, but there’s not much excitement. In an effort to broaden my horizons, I studied abroad this past semester, and one of the main characters in my many pictures from abroad is the sky. I hiked to high places to catch gorgeous sunsets and woke up at the crack of dawn to catch the sky awakening from its slumber. I fought crowds and found sweet escapes to take in the sky’s glory.

    I recently ventured back to my hometown for a good meal and some time with family. I told them I was going to go on a solo walk around my neighborhood. As I turned the corner, I was immediately in awe of the sky above me. The vastness. The colors. A cotton candy sky. It was then that I realized the sky that I admired daily on my abroad adventurous is the same sky that has been above me all along… I just forgot to look up.

    I walked to the nearby pond I have circled numerous times. The orchestra of chirping crickets and quacking ducks played in the background as I admired the oranges and pinks fading into blues. I recalled being a child, sitting on a bench and watching the ducks waddle and swim. A childlike joy came over me seeing the ducks on the pond with a backdrop fit for a movie. I admired sunflowers and cattails growing near the water. Never had I noticed all the flora surrounding this familiar body of water. I stood for a moment to simply take it in. I could not even recall the last time I had gone on this walk without someone else to chat with or music to accompany me, missing out on the peaceful sounds of nature. I was fully present, all senses locked in on the nature at my fingertips.

Reading William Wordsworth’s poem, “The World Is Too Much With Us” in class made me stop and reflect on how I had been interacting with the outside world. Admiring nature had been a special occasion. A camping trip or a hike caused me to bring out my camera, but rarely did I take in the beauty around me in my day-to-day. Wordsworth writes, “Little we see in Nature that is ours.” The nature of my home was something I long overlooked. I mourn the skies I failed to give attention to as I looked down on my phone or straight ahead while driving. Even on a campus as beautiful as TCU is it easy to get so caught up in getting to and from class that I forget to stop and smell the tulips. However, this new awareness is something I am grateful for. I do not have to travel to see nature that takes my breath away. Even a town as small as Crowley, Texas is filled with wonder, I just have to be intentional in discovering it.

Until my next adventure,

Sav