There was a day at Oberlin when I walked into the Arboretum after realizing I had spent nearly a whole year on campus without truly experiencing it. I had always passed by it in a rush, focused on classes, training, goals, expectations, and everything that constantly felt like it was pulling me forward. I never stopped long enough to just see it.
A friend once told me that some people got scared or even sick from swimming in the water there, that it was vast, still, and kind of unsettling in its own way. I remember expecting something similar when I finally came out of my hiding place, something overwhelming or uncomfortable.
But what I found was completely different.
The moment I stepped into the Arb, everything changed. It was calm in a way I wasn’t expecting, unequivocally silent. Not the kind of silence that feels empty, but the kind that feels alive. I could hear the birds clearly, the wind moving through the trees, and the subtle creaks of small branches shifting under their own weight. Every sound felt intentional, like the world was speaking at a pace I had forgotten how to listen to.
There, I started noticing things I would normally overlook: bullfrogs leaping into the water, turtles making small ripples as they moved, even a snake quietly hidden among the cattails. Life was happening everywhere, but without urgency, without attention, without care for whether I was watching or not.
That was the realization that stayed with me.
I had been walking through life thinking I was at the center of it, like everything revolved around my goals, my pressures, my future. But in that moment, I realized how small I actually was in the larger system of life. These creatures didn’t know me, didn’t care about my presence, and didn’t need to. And yet, they were completely whole in their existence.
It made me reflect on how oblivious I had been. We are not the spotlight of the world. We are simply part of it. Small, but still capable of meaning, impact, and awareness in how we choose to see everything around us.
That walk through the Arb changed something in me. Coming from the pressure of college expectations, training, academics, and constant forward motion, I didn’t expect to find that kind of peace. But Oberlin gave me that moment. It showed me that wisdom and clarity don’t always come from pushing harder, they sometimes come from stopping long enough to observe what already exists.
Leaving the noise of places like Mudd Library and stepping into nature made me appreciate everything differently, the systems, the technology, the time, and even the effort behind things as simple as structured problems in math or organized knowledge. Everything is built from something larger than us, shaped by time, nature, and human effort combined.
And in that realization, I understood something deeper: I am real, but I am not separate from everything else. I am part of it.
That one walk through the Arb didn’t just change how I see Oberlin. It changed how I see everything.
