Travel to the Trinity: Part I

On Friday of last week I visited the Trinity river. Specifically I was near the area of the Trinity by Woodshed. Upon arriving and finding a comfortable spot of grass to sit on, I realized something peculiar. The Trinity river is not as it looks here.

Or here

Instead it looked like this. 

And this. 

Not only was I not blessed enough to have visited at twilight or on a sunny, breezy afternoon, but I also was graced with this hideous green "water." Not exactly what you expect when you have Google Image searched "Trinity River" before. 

Did I pick the wrong place to observe? Is there a green river monster polluting Fort Worth's great river? I digress. 

Once I was situated, I did something unspeakable. Yes, you guessed it, I turned off my phone. I decided to go old school and just sit and think with zero interruptions. Which was easy because few people passed on such a miserable day. 

I love the way the wind whistled through the short blades of grass, even when it was only a whisper of a breeze. It was peaceful in a way you can't always find in a big city. I have found in my years living in Fort Worth that is it full of beautiful snippets of nature; a whisper of the wild. The Botanical Gardens, Water Gardens, and the Trinity all make for a nice break from a skyline. 

I saw a little family of ducks walk by (they didn't swim by, obviously afraid of the green-hued water). I thought it was odd that baby ducks were born anytime but the spring. The idea of rebirth in the spring has been so powerfully engrained in my mind I found it difficult to imagine a baby duckling walking through crunchy leaves instead of soft, meadow, bright green grasses. 

I saw a whopping three people in my observational study of the Trinity. 

Subject 1: A woman jogging with her baby (Subject 2) in the stroller. Power to you, mom who can power through the Trinity trails. You have me beat. 

Subject 2: Baby above.

Subject 3: A man running with a German Shepherd. Both were in tip-top physical shape and could impressively stay in step with the other. 

Such a dismal day was no help. I prayed for someone to come downstairs from the apartment building across the way, or even someone taking a picture after eating at Woodshed. My prayers were not answered. I saw only three other humans (listed above). 

I had to get creative. So I started looking at the clouds. I decided to crawl back into that dusty old box covered in cobwebs in the deserted corner of my mind that reads "Fifth Grade" and try to distinguish cloud patterns to no avail. 

Then I let my mind drift. When I do this, I tend to analyze everything I have to do in the next week, and then go from there and always end up thinking what am I going to do after college? 

Which is a rabbit hole I decided not to go down.

Instead I got to thinking about my plans to study abroad next semester in Florence, which always gets really dreamy and romanticized. I am so excited I can hardly contain myself, and I plan to visit as many places as possible while I am in Europe. That can't be expensive right? Of course not, naive Hayley. 

I realized after looking at my phone (which was off and was not help) watch, I had been sitting in the grass for a solid hour. That may not be impressive to Thoreau and the like, but for a 20 year-old college student, I was impressed with myself. 

Nature is beautiful and thought provoking, but even more it brings the absence of technology. This is what made my first Travel to the Trinity so interesting. I don't have an extensive work about the world around me, but I do have an hour without my phone. That is something I will applaud myself for, no matter how sad it is that I find it applause-worthy.