Growing up in the Poconos meant one thing, growing up surrounded by nature. Fortunately as a child I got to play outside a LOT. My friends and I always went exploring in the woods and would play on the trails made by deer hunters. We found so many exciting places in those woods. There was "Red Rock" which was a big open rocky area covered in red rocks; "The Dump" was a field with an empty kerosene container and some old bus seats; "The Tree House" was a fort used by hunters with a big ladder; "The Swamp" sounds much cooler than it actually was, but it was a marshy wooded area covered in moss and always filled up after a good rain; "The Waterfall" was a small waterfall we'd have races with soda cans on; "The Jumps" was a place filled with big piles of dirt which we'd ride our bikes over; and "The Powerlines" was by the river we'd walk across to get home at the end of the day. All of these places were literally in my backyard. We'd play there everyday and have adventures of all different kinds. I knew those woods like the back of my hand.

Now the woods have been replaced with residential housing. A community was built there towards the end of my senior year and all of those great places have disappeared forever. Growing up in the Poconos made me want to live in a city. Now that I'm here in DC, when I think about where my life will take me and where my life has taken me, I always see myself back in those woods. I look around at the concrete ground and massive buildings and realize what an ugly world we live in. I'd like to consider myself a "naturalist". You stamp something "organic" and I'll most likely throw my money in that direction. This is mainly because I think nature pretty much has everything figured out for us. Nature gives us everything we need and has a way of controlling our entire lives for the best. On top of that, nature can always figure out a way to save itself. However we cannot seem to figure out a way to return the favor to nature. As humans living in the "human world" we have somehow forgotten that we are also a part of the "non-human", natural world. We have disconnected ourselves from nature. What I think we should all do is take a step back and play in the actual, real world around us because saving nature essentially means saving ourselves.