Rachel Grundl

Technical Writing
Dr. Spartz
18 November 2015
Beautiful Loneliness
Their lonely season was just beginning. Crisp was the air, paper thin, slipping
between my lips, sights set on the emerald orb. It was an egg to be precise, an emerald
egg. Covered with protruding spikes, a natural defense keeping predators at bay. At least
thats what the little squatty pine tree told me today. His only friend was a few feet from
him, ever reaching for his attention, and would never touch. It was a lonely gesture.
Hopeless.
They look so lonely. Its kind of beautiful. He said before we set foot on the
bridge to look at them from a different angle.
No matter the angle an emerald egg was still to be found. That is all Mother
Nature felt like sharing, She had nothing else to say to me. Maybe to my friend though,
what was he seeing? Being grateful to have heard Her through this unspoken
communication I was sure to return tomorrow. This communication between human and
nature was so pure and natural, an ideal state. Not many hear Mother Nature anymore;
being too busy, trapped inside watching the seasons change from the many screens,
window, phone, television, or Internet.
Rarely partaking.
Succumbing to loneliness sucked in by screens.
A possible transformation would occur tomorrow. Possibly. My mood was
projected on this evergreen spiked body. However, I didnt know what an egg meant for
my mood.

Was I hungry?
This transformation was one of the two subtle differences playing with my eyes.
Behind the lonely pair, a crimson curtain slowly beginning to fall, lifes show ending.
Leaves falling, whisked away, into the field below dominated by brush that clung to fur,
clothing, and picked away at skin.
It was as if the field didnt want anyone to walk amongst it. Some sort of
protection of reproduction as the sticky seeds stuck to the vulnerable being.
Ive only walked out to those lonely trees once.
Not many others have, the field almost untouched.
Everyone is inside, missing Her harsh beauty.
The crimson leaves were lost beneath the brush, hiding scurrying creatures.
Chipmunks and squirrels were collecting dying leaves by mouthfuls making a warm
home for the long winter. It was rare to see them doing so but their frantic noise was
always present.
There was more movement in the cold. Scurrying always, but in the newly frost
tipped morning the movement of furred feet and tapping talons was more evident.
Coldness wrapped around everything it touched, trying hard to steal my visible breath
puffing before my eyes.
Nevertheless my squatted short pine stood. His friend more lanky and spread
reaching towards him, just out of reach. But that didnt keep him from trying. This
curtain of color behind them had almost completely fallen. The loosened leaves left to
dangle or be blown away. Their crimson, golden, and lime bodies lifted to the air, strewn
across the low lying field, blanketing the bridge in patch work or drowning in the nearby

stream. Those two lonely trees however, continue to stand watching this color fade and
disappear.
Death.
Nature wasnt personal in Her harshness, unlike us.
She was life and death.
With their death came the scents. I never knew death could smell sweet. Smell
so fresh in pleasant decay. This autumnal blend fills my face with a smile. Candle
companies would be envious at their inability to capture this true scent. Among the light
autumnal blend lies a surprise, the smell of domestication. A small nearby barn stinks of
hay, dirt and wood. This smell interrupts the lonely but calming view upon these trees.
And then the sounds.
Sheep bleating.
Guffawing goats.
Ruining a moment of serenity. This domestication was brought on by human
nature, forcing some to be outside. Were they really outside? Or obligated, did they find
this same serenity? Value Her being? Relentless like the wind snatching the smaller
evergreen branches shaking them, making the relentlessly clasped needles dance. Today,
my tree was a robust dancer riding the wind. Flirting with its movement, revealing more
of its body, as the layers of limbs lifted. A river of rushing leaves lifted, this crimson
flood with hints of gold ran fast. The wind slows their stampede, a vermillion ballerina
beginning to fall, graceful, like the bow against the strings of a violin during her final
bow.
Landing.

Lightly among the bodies of patchwork upon the bridge, beginning to blend, the
ballerina is lost. Unlike the opposite of that vermillion dancer that assurance of that
green, obtrusive and eye snatching blotted stature is still there. Ever present in the field is
that natural Rorschach test, my emerald inkblot, revealing secrets. Today it looks like a
billowing bomb beginning to blow. An explosion of green soon to be surrounded
engulfed and peppered by white.
This same white will soon swallow my feet, leaving me centered in body, not only
in mind with Her, giving a slight satisfactory crunch. This crunch transforming from the
scrunch of the leaves bending beneath my feet, along with the autumnal smell, this
scrunch and crunch cannot be recreated. Unlike that beautiful loneliness between the two
in the field, that is recreated in life, in human nature.
Could that loneliness be ended with a simple touch?
Like the tree ever reaching.
Could a grasp taking the lonely out into Her world, to breathe, feel and see open
the mind to so much more than what is on the screen?
My little evergreen bomb could surely ignite anothers world, but then again,
thats only what I was seeing.
What about you?