PUBLISHED: 03-09-09

Human Nature

‘Mountains & Manhood’

Natural Tendencies:Critical Encounters’ personal narratives on Human/Nature

It felt like we had walked for two days up hills and big rocks. It seemed like the mountain would never end. From up there, the car began to look like a small bug. It was almost 100 degrees under the blazing sun, and there was no shade anywhere. There were no people for miles. The only sound you heard was the flapping of wings, cries of birds flying overhead and the little kids crying that they wanted to go home.

But to my father, this was the best place on Earth. We were in Irapuato, Mexico hiking up the mountains with my family, my father’s cousins and their families. This was the first time that I had actually taken a trip to the mountains. I was never a kid that would find much excitement outside. I had never found anything interesting about hot, dry and very tall mountains. On the other hand, my father wished he could
live here.

As a child, my father would go up every day to these mountains to escape an abusive father. He would go there to eat the fruit that he got from helping to feed an elderly woman’s chickens. To my father, this was a preview of heaven. This was the only place where he could be himself, where he did not have to share a loaf of bread with nine other siblings. This was the place where he became the man I know today.

As we went up that mountain, I gained a new sense of life. I appreciate and thank the mountains for giving me the father I have today. This little piece of nature changed my life entirely. With this trip, I learned to appreciate the peace and tranquility that nature gives us. I started to really find out what the phrase “Mother Nature” meant to me.

Nature, or at least what is left of it, was meant to be a place where life’s problems go away, where the bills do not matter and where you are not worried about the promotion at work. Mother Nature gives you a sense of happiness and bliss that inspires hope. This trip was the first time that I actually learned what this earth has to offer and gave me a sense of a natural inspiration. I took in every smell, every breeze and
every sight.

As we continued to walk up the mountain, we reached a small building. It was constructed of old adobe bricks and bore a sign that read “Viboras disecadas,” which means “dried snakes.” My father would tell me stories about these kinds of places.

People who did not have enough money to live in the city would build these small buildings and use them as homes and stores. They would find some local fruit to sell. They would skin the snakes, eat the meat and sell the skins along the roads. I realized that nature is not always pretty, but it always gives you a way to survive. The cities that we inhabit do not. Concrete does not give fruit; steel does not provide water. Glass has never given birth to life. Nature forces people to look within themselves and choose the kind of life they want to live. People there learned how to live in such remote and desolate places, and I feel that they are stronger for it.

As we reached the top of the mountain, I noted that only my father and me had continued the trek. This was the first time that I really saw the world through my father’s eyes. At this point, nature was not just trees and dirt; it became a bonding agent for my father and me. We both sat at the very top and said nothing, because that moment was bigger than both us. For those few moments, time stopped, and we became part of nature because we both embraced and respected it.

The aim of “Natural Tendencies” is to show the relationships between humans and nature, as well as to better understand human nature. If you would like to submit to Human “Natural Tendencies,” please contact Kevin Fuller at (312) 369-8505 or .

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