On the northern outskirts of town, there’s a little trail that I’ve been visiting at least a couple of times a week. It’s not exactly remote or vast; parts of the trail border public baseball and soccer fields. However, this trail, my trail (as affectionately I like to think of it) weaves through a modestly sized tract of land that is managed by the city as a wilderness area. Though my trail isn’t on the scale of a national forest and it’s not protected as a heritage site or endemic species zone, the important and vital thing about my trail is that it is less than a fifteen-minute drive for anyone who lives within Denton city limits and that, although it’s a small forest, it visits a place of diverse, lush, (mostly) unhampered wild growth of a healthy North Texas ecosystem. There are a couple of short diversions from the main trail that get a little less traffic and will have the hiker immersed in tree stands just dense enough to hide buildings and roadways.
It is vitally important to the health of residents that urban areas have as much free-to-the-public protected wilderness as possible within city limits. My mutt, Rufus, and I are able to hop in the car and arrive at a wilderness trail in less than seven minutes–everyday if I were so dedicated and organized with my time–and without any more interruption in one’s day than, say, the time necessary to visit a gym. This accessibility to a wilderness area has a profoundly positive effect on my life. Multiple psychological studies support evidence of the importance of frequent immersion in nature for mental health. A 2017 study at the University of Sussex found that sounds from natural environments induced outward-directed focus of attention in participants whereas sounds from artificial environments were more likely to induce the sort of inward-directed focus characteristic of PTSD, depression, and anxiety.
There’s something else that’s so incredibly valuable about having my almost-everyday trail: I develop a long-term relationship with a flora and fauna. Rufus, a sweet yet an anxious protector, has gotten so used to North Lakes Park Trail that he’s begun to growl at other park goers as if defending his territory. Not what I had intended and surely corrected by me as soon as this behavior began to rear, but it seems he has developed his own relationship with the trail as well. It’s become an extended part of our home, an integral part of our lives.
I’m the type of person who doesn’t like to do anything the same way twice. My job history is long and varying, not because I can’t keep a job down, but mostly because I’m an experience-aholic. I want to know what every profession is like, taste every food, visit every country, hike every trail–the sort of wander-lust characteristic of any writer, I suppose. And yet, anywhere I’ve lived, there’s always been that one trail that I keep going back to and as frequently as possible. To hell if that means I miss out on other trails–trying to get to every trail in my region would mean not seeing the transitions, blooms, and wilts on my trail. There’s something both thrilling and nurturing to observe a wild landscape change over the course of the year.
For that special home-trail, breathtaking views are not important. There’s another trail south of me that is longer, arguably prettier, and certainly more removed–it even has a small canyon. In addition, it’s connected to a dog park. The difference? That trail is a good 20 minutes by car from my house. MY trail is only 3–5 minutes from home and it still has plenty of nature to inspire and calm me. I’m simply not going to get to a trail that’s more than 12 minutes away multiple times a week. The dog park trail is more of a bi-monthly treat. No, our small wilderness is enough. Because it’s wilderness. My only complaint is that I wish there were more of it. Developers are currently building apartments next to my trail, which is sad to me, because I feel that land should have been annexed to the park, allowed to go fallow.
In North Texas, the growing season is considerably long. It’s quite unusual that we had our first freeze in mid-November this year, but up to the freeze, it looked like springtime compared to the Autumns of more northern states. Flowers were still blooming and the leaves were just beginning to change. All around was green in varying tones. The color of love in one hundred shades. When you visit a trail often enough, you begin to notice more. If you spot eggs in a nest overhead, you will want to return quickly to see if they’ve hatched. You will want to breathe in every sea change of pink to red to yellow inflorescence across the weedy fields. You will not want to miss a single bloom. And the pods that burst into a white, downy confetti for a few weeks until they shrivel into bark-like husks. That is beautiful, too. You believe each small, display to be as necessary to your existence as it is to have good friends.
We don’t need more permed knolls of Saint Augustine–those are great for lounging and playing, but most cities have enough. The secret to success for good city planning? Nature, nature, nature. Let the woodies grow wild.
- Cassandra D. Gould van Praag, Sarah N. Garfinkel, Oliver Sparasci, Alex Mees, Andrew O. Philippides, Mark Ware, Cristina Ottaviani, Hugo D. Critchley. Mind-wandering and alterations to default mode network connectivity when listening to naturalistic versus artificial sounds. Scientific Reports, 2017; 7: 45273 DOI: 10.1038/srep45273
