Saturday February 15, 2014
15:20

Front Royal, VA - One month has passed since I began my internship here at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and I can say that I have already learned many many things. Perhaps nothing more powerful than my new appreciation for wifi - the stuff is gold. I joke, but truly, living in an old farm house nestled in the woods a mile away from anyone really makes one appreciate the small things. Life as an intern is definitely different than life as a student. Of course everyone knows that but, this being my first real internship anywhere, I had a lot to learn. First and foremost is that I am answering to a boss now. A boss who is none other than Dr. William McShea. Also, I am now working a consistent 8-5 schedule (never less but often more). Being an intern certainly has its perks, however. I am now part of “the other side of the curtain” and am in the unspoken, and probably not even recognized, brotherhood of other interns and researchers. I rub elbows and share bathrooms with researchers every day. I am peers with other youthful, vibrant, determined people working each day towards our careers as the next generation of conservationists. Being near so many Masters and PhD hopefuls really has helped me focus and redefine my goals. I’m still very clueless, don’t get me wrong, but I have become much more confident in my choice to take each step slow and sure. To work each day trying to learn as much as possible, and to never stop hunting for the next wild research opportunity. A researcher I work with put it perfectly, “You’re young and don’t have too many responsibilities, now is the time to go out there and do crazy shit! Go explore and research in the craziest places while you can still handle it!”. Words that made me laugh at first, but very much resonated in my head for days afterwards.

The BiodiversiTree project is certainly coming a long. In only a month we have plotted out all but one of our 35m x 35m plots and have flagged 10 of them. My time is divided between working in the field with our land manager, Kyle Rhodes, and working in the office for Virginia Working Landscapes. I have to say, I much prefer hiking up and down snowy slopes carrying hammers and tapes and rebars than sitting in a quiet office pulling out my hair to teach myself enough excel to only have to redo the file 5 times. Computer work is where the future is, even in conservation, and excel is the most basic tool of all - I’m getting there. 

Living in the Leach House has been a wonderful experience for me so far. The old farm house is secluded but not so secluded that the maintenance team can’t get to us with their plows. It is filled with old furniture and photos from past teams of interns. The rooms just resonate with history and creepiness. It’s like living in a historic building. At times I feel like I should be preserving it - not shitting in its toilet. I occasionally take my DSLR out and explore the area around it. One can easily see remnants of Captain Leach’s farmland. By our pond are two abandoned barns (one of which I think Leach Cat lives in) and along the sides of the house one can see the broken down remains of stone fences. I love the winter but at the same time am eager for the warmer weather. I long to be able to run outside and feel the sun on my skin again. Once it warms up we will be able to clean up our garden and perhaps even grow vegetables. 

Last weekend I flew up to Michigan to visit Laurie. It had only been a month since I last saw her but I already missed her so much. It’s definitely been hard dealing with the distance. This being my first go at a long distance relationship (her third), my 8-5 daily schedule (get up at 7, dark by 6), on average only seeing 5 different people a day (she’s at college) and the lack of social outlet (we have two bars and a bowling ally, no wifi) - it was easy to see why she was doing so much better than me. I admit it wasn’t ideal to cash in my one flight so early in the game but because of her lacrosse schedule and encroaching exams - I had to work around her schedule. I am terrified of flying. For example, when I took off from Dulles in that tiny little plane I held my hands together, closed my eyes and blasted “Let’s Be Still” by The Head and the Heart. My heart was nearly in arrhythmia. There are just too many variables (I would be happy never flying again and driving and sailing the rest of my life if I had the money and time). And to see my darling for the weekend I had to take off and land 4 times in 2 days. I don’t know if she’ll ever understand how much I care about her but I do know that the people unfortunate enough to be in the seats next to me certainly do. All my melodrama and near death experiences aside - flying up north gave me the chance to see some of the most beautiful views of my life. Flying into Chicago at night is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The city is an endless, illuminated grid. There’s really no better way to describe it other than that it looked like yellow Tron. On the other hand, flying into Detroit on my way back home looked like an endless ocean of ice and dark blue water. Flying above the winter storm made me feel like I was gazing down upon the Antarctic…When I touched down in Chicago it was already 2200 and I knew that it was a solid three hour drive back to Holland, MI. I don’t think I can really describe the 2 short days I got to spend with her. She’s good for my soul. Life has always been rather hectic for me - I never seem to think I am doing enough or doing the right thing. My mind wanders and loses itself very often in the mess of my own self-expectation. In terms of Love, I have never fared well. My past relationships have always been the perfect storm of my own insecurities, idealism and, there’s no way around it, terrible women. Laurie has always had this sense about her that I have not found before. She is straightforward, tells me what she is thinking about, tells me how she feels and tells me to tell her what’s on my mind - she makes me talk. She is realistic and always knows how to ground me again when my head gets too lost in the clouds. She is, at the same time, the tenderest person and the hardest person to me. She just knows how to drive me forward. The two days were filled with meeting her housemates, seeing her campus, walking around Holland’s downtown, taking in the Michigan winter and meeting her siblings. I can definitely say I am still in love with the north. As much as she hates it I still very much want to live somewhere where the winters are harsh and the summers are beautiful. Somewhere where the mountains meet the ocean and I can make my future FJ Cruiser really put it’s 4x4 to the test. Perhaps my second favorite moment of the trip was trekking across the frozen beach of Holland State Park with her and gazing across the frozen expanse of Lake Michigan (the first favorite being meeting her family, of course). It was both my first time seeing any of the Great Lakes and seeing this much frozen water. I remember turning towards her and staring into her eyes as the wind and snow blew around us. The snow illuminated her eyes and I couldn’t help but pull her in and hold her. Too often I count my blessings because, to me, nothing ever lasts as long as you want it to. This weekend was half way done, my internship will end, she will soon graduate and sooner than I want we will both be cast again into the next hectic chapters of our lives. And the hard part that I force myself to not think about is the very real possibility of us parting ways. She’s a realist, I am a idealist - there has been a disconnect since day 1 on how we see our relationship and it’s something that simply won’t change. Time can make or break things. We will be doing our wild research all over the world and it’s pretty certain it won’t be with each other. When the time comes that we can’t hold onto this anymore I have to be able to take it. So I held her…But before this tangent becomes completely depressing - I finally got to meet her siblings. I got to meet the brother, sister and sister-in-law I had heard so much about before. We had brunch at her brother’s house in Chicago and it was like walking into a Pottery Barn magazine fused with a bookstore - I loved it. They say when you are with someone their family unconditionally comes along with the package and man am I glad they were so carefree and fun to be around. Fresh pancakes, good music and good conversation is what we had for breakfast. I admit I was nervous that an all out interview was going to happen but it wasn’t at all like I anticipated. They were kind, interesting and interested - it couldn’t have been more perfect. 

All too soon the weekend ended and a week of work went by. The passing storms have been beautiful but tough on us at Leach House. It’s hard to get out of here to main campus without our pickup and the gracious help from the maintenance guys’ plows. Though, being snowed in does have its perks. It gave us a chance to rest and enjoy living in the woods. Something I didn’t expect was how being out from 8-5 really leaves you with no energy (or daylight) to enjoy the simplicity of the farm house you live in. We just get back, eat dinner and sleep. Walking through the deep snow with my camera allowed me to capture some peaceful and beautiful moments of Leach House. The first month here has already taught me so much. I am here till June and fill my spare time with reading, writing, applying to jobs/internships and PBR. I think about her all the time and I think about the future more than I should. She always tells me I think way too much into things and I don’t think she could be more right. I always seem to miss the small things and yet obsess over the little moments - if that even makes sense. But, the long and the short of it all is that I know that I am blessed, that I know life goes on and that I know there is time. She came into my life quite unexpectedly and has shown me so much in so short a time. She has made me happier than I have ever been and has lit a fire in me that has burned away the dusty, old things that have cluttered my head and my heart for too long now. I am becoming a new man with each passing day and I owe her for that.

Here’s to the next steps and trekking on.

Chris