I am a student at the University of Washington and am majoring in environmental studies. Every day I learn about the world around us, and what we are doing to damage it, from carbon dioxide emissions to shopping bags to the junk mail we get every day.
My passion for life in all forms is what drives me through the hopelessness of Earth’s condition. But just recently in class we were asked a question that brought me back to why I am in this program.
We were asked to think of a childhood memory where you were in nature, a field where you picked flowers or a pond where you looked for tadpoles. Then we were asked if we were still able to go back there. I still have the privilege of visiting my natural sanctuary. The Japanese Gulch in Mukilteo houses the memories of my childhood, its treetops were my roof, its flowers and vines my toys. I thought about all the nights spent looking at the stars and watching bats fly above me, the days spent acting as though we were the first explorers that walked its soil.
If we lose the gulch to development we in sense lose what makes childhood beautiful. If we add order and structure to a place where we go to escape these very things then what do we have left? This question cut to the core of me, and showed me that if the gulch was gone all I would have left are my memories. My future children would only hear stories about the bugs and the streams and the trees, instead of forging the gulch’s trails and experiencing it on their own.
If we lose this little plot of land to development of any kind, we in a sense lose a part of us.
Jasmine Lamb
Seattle
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