Parks and People Reflection

I love the skin I’m in. I think I can appreciate trees and plants so much more now that I’ve come to understand what its like to have parasites living off of you. Vegetation doesn’t have it easy, and it takes a good amount of resilience to thrive and continue to grow, as we’ve noticed throughout this project.

Little did I know that these plants, very much like their human neighbors, go through their share of daily hardships and obstacles, like Japanese Honeysuckle and English Ivy, which wrap their hostile loins around tree bark in attempts to keep the poor guys down. Fortunately for them, we as humans can relate, and are more than happy to swoop in and stop those invasive species at the root of the problem, or in the case, the actual root itself.

Racking up quantifiable numbers and pushing toward the mission of achieving 40% tree canopy in Baltimore was very apparent in our work each day, and knowing that saving these trees, planting new ones, maintaining existing ones, and clearing the trails alongside of them, had made this an experience well worth it, and in turn, brought us a lot closer to our photosynthesized friends.

In the end, I think I’ve won out over the ticks and poison ivy that have attempted to take over my outer layer. I’ve become one with nature in this sense, but in all sincerity, I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of an environmental project and learn so much more than I did before about the importance of tree canopy in an urban environment. Next time I pass by an Oak, I look forward to the moment we’ll share with one another.