It felt a little bit like suffocating. Dealing with school, extracurriculars and most of all, a very painful end to a personal relationship about two months prior, I felt like the walls of my dorm room were closing in on me. So last Saturday, in an attempt to temporarily remove myself from some of this, I decided to find a getaway. After a quick Google search, Afton Forest Preserve, south of town, was crying out my name.

In minutes, I was out the door and speeding toward that little green blob on the map, feeling all those pressures at my back, seemingly pushing me harder and harder to my destination. The weather that day seemed to reflect my mood. It was overcast, the clouds forming a solid mass of gray above me, and a November chill cut through the air. Alone on that country road, I felt peacefully desolate. I saw no other vehicles, a pleasant change compared to the swarming campus streets.

I’m not really sure what I expected upon my arrival. But I knew something out there had to be better than what I was feeling on campus. Parking my car, I climbed out, finding the preserve devoid of human life other than myself. Surrounded by tall prairie grass, I followed a brief winding trail which led to an open grassy area bordered by more tall grass, above which I could make out what appeared to be a pond. Making my way toward the water, I discovered it to be a widened section of river. It was a haunting scene. Submerged in the middle of the water, the tops of two trees reached up out of the depths, their lifeless branches bending every which way. Nature was all around me, cold but beautiful in its November sleep.

I returned to Afton the next Sunday to a remarkably different experience. This time, the sun was not only visible, but dazzling in its slow descent to the horizon. Journeying around the river, I watched the swaying prairie grass, and again enjoyed this seclusion in nature. Ascending a hill, I then climbed up an observation post, which gave the ultimate view of the preserve, overlooking the valley in which the river lies.

And then a helicopter flew overhead, breaking the silence with its propellers’ steady chopping at the air. After this, I was struck by an observation. My high vantage point provided me with the opportunity to see not only the preserve, but buildings, roads and power lines in the distance. I was beholding the stark contrasts of two very different creations, and the competition between them. The mark of man was and is all over the place, his creations in abundance. The clouds were streaked from airplanes’ passages through the sky, barns and houses stood all over the distance; even the wooden structure I was standing on declared man’s presence in the world. But then there are the features of this earth that, though he may alter them, man can never claim to truly create. Man can’t go make a field of grass, or decide to build a tree. Nature, the universe and its creator are just as visible as man and his creations.

While it is certain that these two often compete — man clears away nature to make way for himself — it became apparent to me that the winner is obvious. As I sat there and watched the sun slip beyond the horizon, the flocks of geese wheeling in the sky, and the water slip ever on and on, I knew nature was the most powerful. After all, it was this power that calmed my restless spirit and eased my pain where man had failed. It is my hope that the Aftons of this world will live on while the buildings and roads crumble, so that men may continue to find solace in the things of this world that are much more permanent than they.