Editor’s Essay

Making Time for Nature

Jill Riddell, Editorial Board Chair

I admit it. I have nature programmed into my calendar. Right there with work meetings and dentist’s appointments are my planned nature trysts. For example, on the little white square of July 18, the calendar says “GMP,” a shorthand note that means I’m supposed to go to Gensburg Markham Prairie to see the spectacular, mid-summer bloom of blazing stars. Even more embarrassing is the fact that I planned that date, and others like it, all the way back in January.

I’m sure Thoreau didn’t have to schedule nature into his PDA. But if I didn’t write prairie blooms or warbler migrations into my calendar well ahead of time, I can’t say I wouldn’t make it out to see them, but the odds would certainly get worse. I live in a household of four people who love Chicago Wilderness natural areas, but who love a lot of other things, too: movies, Mad Men, dinners with friends, reading blogs and books, going to family celebrations or just sitting in our own back yard and watching fireflies. And in addition to the things we enjoy, there is the perpetual list of weekend errands that must be done.

Still, even with fierce competition for our summer leisure time, I try to remember that there are amazingly cool things happening in natural areas a mere half-hour away from us. Birds are battling for territories, endangered turtles are laying eggs, hawk moths are pollinating rare orchids, falcons are swooping down on mourning doves — I don’t want my kids (or me) to go through an entire season missing it. So to make sure the summer doesn’t slide by without our seeing Big Nature — as opposed to the nature that is all around us all the time — I schedule it.

The funny thing is, when I do drop away from our ordinary weekend activities and make the effort to go out to a natural area, I often feel like I’ve taken a mini-vacation. The day seems longer and fuller. Something about the wildness and mystery, the sense of being someplace unfamiliar — it stands out like a trip to Target never could. If my weekend were a landscape, the hike in a forest preserve would be the tall, memorable specimen tree, while the errand-running would be the underbrush: boringly ubiquitous and quite possibly invasive.

In this issue, you’ll learn of folks who are trying to give more children opportunities to connect to nature in “Reclaiming the Outdoors,” and Robert Dolgan tells us about one of the thorny issues that surround the use of natural areas. You’ll also see how stunning the orchids of Chicago Wilderness are in “A Passion for Paradise.” Be sure to remember to look for them on your own visits to natural areas this summer.

And may your visits be plentiful! Schedule them right now. Go to a natural area on Saturday, and I promise you won’t find yourself on Monday morning, scratching your head and wondering where the weekend went.