boxing it up, fencing it off

The snow was pristine, white, silent. Everything was beautiful and quiet and lovely. It was my very first time to snowshoe. I was a novice, and completely naive about maneuvering my way around land completely covered in snow. You could not see what was on the ground because of layers of whiteness that covered everything -- clean or dirty, broken or whole. Everything was more beautiful, cleaner, brighter, purer. Trampling around in the snow, winding our way through the trees, it seemed like the everything was right with the world. Nothing could be fresher, more natural, or cleaner.

It made me think that so much of the world was like this contradiction: beautiful white snow covering the ground, just like so many other beautiful things covering up our minor errors, our great insecurities, our gross imperfections. We trample around above them all, believing that everything was pristine and whole, hoping that what we cover it up with will eventually help us to forget. We rely on the vagaries of memory, and the imperfections of history to lull us into believing we have managed to make the world right. We have effectively wrapped up every social injustice, every war, every experience of violence and covered it in white snow.

We forgot who we were and where we were as we trekked around the beautiful landscape. It wasn't long though, because we soon heard someone emerging from his log cabin to yell at us. Apparently we had been trespassing on his property. Underneath the wintry beauty, he had fenced off his own bit of nature, partitioned it as his own and refused to share it with his fellow humans. It was private property. Privatized nature.

The attitude of "mine/yours" doesn't surprise me; we put virtual and physical borders around everything. We mark our territories, and we stake our claims. From the beginning of time, from Adam and Eve, we've wanted to label what is "ours." But it irritates me to see such proprietariness. Who are we in the scheme of things to demand exclusive rights to nature? It's been ingrained in us to take and hoard; it's still a shame. Shame on us for doing so.