April 21, 2021
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Jennifer Coronel
Every year on Earth Day, my teachers would remind us to “get some nature!” This always confused me. Why would I do that? Why would I go outside and sit in the dying grass? Did my teachers want me to sit by the one tree in my neighborhood? That just never seemed very appealing.
I spent most of my life in the Southside of Chicago. Like many low-income urban areas, there was little greenery in my neighborhood. Similarly, our apartment building did not have a backyard, just a concrete slab in its place. I spent all of my time inside, in front of the TV. Fortunately, my mother was always watching documentaries, my favorites of which were nature documentaries. I could not believe that the places I saw in these documentaries, so colorful and vibrant, existed. They seemed almost alien to me—the exact opposite of what I was surrounded by. I dreamed about visiting the raw and untamed natural areas that were depicted.