But why? Why do I do this research? Why have I chosen to dedicate, to sacrifice the next few years to this work? Why can’t I pull myself away from the chaos of research?
I guess it began when I started talking to the trees. And when the wind answered back by rustling their leaves. It began when the waves whispered to me, when the sand held my grief - grounded me. It began when a rock split my father’s thumb open while building a monument, when the sparks from a campfire disappeared into the night - blending in with the stars. I was starved for understanding, consuming stories, words, knowledge like the dry soil consumes rain. Greedily, hungrily, gratefully. Absorbing it fully, completely - but thirsty again soon enough. Reading every plaque at the small town, one room museums. Watching dragonflies die on the sidewalk, watching my grandfather filet a perch, fearing the snapping turtle would catch my toes while swimming. Why? why, why, why, whywhywhywhy? Why. Why does it all exist, all work, all breathe? Why do we care when a tree is felled, when a tree is planted, when the sun rises, when it sets?
This curiosity for understanding it all has left me with this insatiable hunger, carrying me into a PhD. A modern symbol of ‘intelligence’, perhaps. But the more I know, the less I know, the more I need to know… I live in the now, experience it daily - low hanging fruit. The future, a dream, not promised, not mine yet. Unknowable. And hence my why’s turned to the past. Known? A world built on memories, assumptions, images. Unknown?
The Earth speaks to us, sharing her stories plainly. Perhaps I yearn to be a translator, translating Mother Earth’s language into a watered-down version we can understand. Listening through sediment, through grain size, through amoebae, through the curve of a river, through the scrapes on a rock. How much is lost in translation? This unknowable past was known, is known, through these stories. Stories, ah the familiar hunger pain. Starving for these stories. I swallow them down until I am overfilled, regurgitating them to anyone who will listen.
Am I wise, or greedy?
I do not care either way. I like to say my purpose is to witness. To witness, to translate, to roll in this mess of why’s like a fly caught in a spider web, to overindulge in the delicacy of knowledge - left with a stomach ache.
And so this is my answer. Something leads me towards understanding, a carrot on a string. And I have neither want or will to deny this curiosity. Dear Creator let me witness, let me lick the morsels of your existence from my fingers as I dig through the soil.