It’s a well known fact that TCU has an endowment to keep the campus grounds immaculate throughout the year. I will see gardeners replacing the flower beds frequently, when I still think the flowers in the beds have beauty left to give. TCU has taken full control over the natural landscape and artificially keeps the campus at its peak of beauty regardless of the outside conditions.
The transition from here to my home in Edmond, Oklahoma always has me disappointed in how the gardens there can’t match the elegance of the ones here on campus. But that is an absurd standard to hold anything - even nature herself - to. It is unnatural to have flowers be that pristine even in the winter months. Nature has a way of cycling through death and rebirth, which is a beautiful way to make us appreciate it that much more. I believe that it is death that gives life meaning, and if death is taken away, then life is not nearly as precious. In the same way, we need to see these flowers die and shrivel to truly appreciate their rise again to bless the world with their beauty. Keeping them alive year round has only spoiled me and made me appreciate their presence in nature less.
However, the nature present on campus isn’t all bad. While the gardens project an unrealistic image for the natural world, they do bring a variety of friends to campus who never fail to cheer me up. I have had several encounters with an opossum on campus, who is always respectful of my space and enjoys seeing college kids thrive - as long as they continue to support his lifestyle with scraps of food for him to snack on. A few times I have seen a fox running through campus, and each time he appears lost, as if he doesn’t know how he found himself entrapped in such a foreign place surrounded by the unknown and humans worried about the very same thing. I have seen a crane strolling majestically through campus as if he owned the place, reclaiming this territory for what it used to be. Yet as you get near, fear would creep in and he would fly away, as if on campus he was invincible until the outer world started to present its reality. I have learned a lot from these creatures, and in the process, I have found out that they’re not always so different from you and me.
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