Place Entry 6

NOTE: This entry is from two different visits to the pond. Because the season was changing so rapidly and I wanted to document the changes, I visited over Spring Break and again on another occasion this past week.

First Visit:

The day has the crisp colors of sky and earth that tempt me to hazard spring has arrived, although I do so hesitantly. The snow has diminished to tiny islands, its dominion over the land broken. Much of the grass that now emerges is remarkably green. It's incredible to consider the resilience and evolutionary fortitude of something so ubiquitous as the grass all around me. I really can't get over how green it still is.

More than any of the other indicators - the warmer weather, the retreating snow - the grass's green vibrancy triggers in me the mental note that the seasons have changed. I did not detest this winter as much as most, although it was apparently a particularly severe one. I take pleasure in winter because it gives me an excuse to don my sturdy boots, which are simply too warm and bulky to wear at any other time of year. I also love the challenge of keeping myself warm in winter months, which considering I walk everywhere I go becomes slightly more difficult.

But I welcome now the arrival of a new, warmer season. The return of the robin and the emergence of the chipmunk, sighted scurrying around the brick wall adjacent to the bookstore. It's true. There appears to be more energy with the coming of spring. There appears to be more life.

Second Visit:

Because the temperature is comfortably cool at nights now, as opposed to uncomfortably cold, I've come to the pond this evening just as the sun has submerged itself beneath the crisp line of the horizon. The pair of mallards I had observed in the autumn has returned, as gradually all the different birds are returning. One female is missing though, and I hope she was not a casualty of migration, one of the greatest causes of bird death annually (along with feral cats).

Walking to the pond from my apartment, it was pleasant to realize that I've become accustomed to the songs of the birds of the area, and I don't need to see them to know what's around. When I first arrived here I was rusty with the calls, having spent so much time traveling abroad. But tonight, I heard the robins serenading like so many troubadours, along with one cardinal, whom I could not see in the waning light but knew him to be high up in an oak tree on Woodland Rd. There were also the chirps of the house sparrows to filter. I have frequently been hearing the ballads of the white-throated sparrows, although I think there are other sparrows in the area I need to refamiliarize myself with, too. I've not yet heard the raucous screams of the jays, but not doubt their blunt declarations of their presence will soon return to the area.

The light has fully escape, and the pond is mostly dark, bathed only lightly in the artificial light of campus. The moon is at just a quarter tonight, but it's quite high in the sky already and very handsome looking. I spot from the right corner of my periphery a thin shadow dance and dart above the pond. A bat. Then another, and they are both gone. Later in the evening, I will learn that it was probably a Little Brown Bat, the most common species in the area. There are only eleven to contend with in all of Pennsylvania, and a couple are extremely rare or not yet present this time of year.

Certainly, the pond has changed. It reflects the change of season in it's freed water and the verdant grass all around it. But my perception of it has changed, too. I was already familiar with many of the fauna that frequent it, and quickly learned the others. But it's been through learning the flora that I've garnered something of a deeper appreciation for it.

I learned through Professor Sterner this week that the presence of the Japanese Laceleaf Maple is in fact a result of affluence. It was very fashionable for Andrew Mellon to collect exotic, stately trees such as this one on his property, and many of the trees on the Chatham campus, especially around his estate, reflect this (not to say that the standard has really changed). Thinking about it now, the very name, Japanese Laceleaf Maple, seems to pretty clearly convey a sense of affluence and sophistication.

And there are others, too. The Japanese Flowering Crabapple and Honey Locust, individuals closer to Mellon Hall. Their exoticism and value is neatly accentuated by the tiny placards that boast their names. They come with inscriptions of Latin beneath the common name, appropriately in cursive. There is also, of course, the Chatham seal in the corner. They were not visible when the snow rose several feet above the ground, but now they are prim and clearly visible.

The snow has revealed something else, too. Apparently, the pond is actually named in honor of Anne Putnam Mallison, a Chatham alumna who donated generously in her time. I had not been conscious before how much affluence seems to pervade the very core of the pond, but it is certainly here. Even the animals, they are the dainty species that one would expect a sophisticate would want around, gentle and comely but in no way threatening. In this way, I can claim I've come to understand the pond better.