NOLS Fellow Personal Reflection

In ancient Chinese philosophy, there is a concept of non-linear time. That events and progression wrap itself around in more of a spiral, rather than upwards on an x and y axis. Whenever I am outside for long enough, I am shown how this truth shows up all around us.

The cycle of water through a stream, pouring on top of my tent at night, drunk into my body. The cycle of nitrogen through the insides of microbes in the soil, a decomposing oak tree, the building blocks of my thick dark hair. The cycle of carbon through the air I blow into my sleeping pad, releasing through leaves, in the stream’s trout.

Growing up in the suburbs of Piedmont North Carolina, my mother and I planted bitter melon and yardlong beans in the front yard. As a first generation immigrant, throughout my childhood, I ate these fruits and vegetables whose seeds originated in southern China. Molecules of carbon and nitrogen having time traveled across the planet to land in my mouth. I watched and followed my grandparents taking walks backward around the local middle school track, self-massaging their ears and thighs in the late summer coolness.

Growing up Chinese American for me meant that being outdoors was intertwined in how we ate food, how we served our bodies, and how we woke up by stepping out of the front door and letting the sun say hello on our skin—without any additional reflection besides it feeling so good.

Photo Credit Kristen Lee

The first time I spent more than one night outside was in western North Carolina when I was in high school. I remember the discomfort of my shoulders, centipedes crawling in my sleeping bag, waking up before the sun and watching it rise from Table Mountain in Pisgah National Forest.

This was my first introduction to the backcountry, and it felt different from being outdoors around my home. For the first time, spending time outside, while backpacking, required preparation, technique, and expertise. I forgot about the depth of my suburban backyard, and began thinking about how little I knew of this new outdoor world.

As I backpacked more and for longer, I separated my life at home from my life on adventures. The outdoors that I experienced planting seeds in my front yard became separated from the trips I would take to national parks. While much of this process flew under my consciousness, this separation also meant I was performing in both spaces. And performing meant that I didn’t show up as my full self at home or outside of it. In many ways, this separation was built on the dichotomy created from growing up in a Chinese household in an American country.

Only more recently, through observing the cycles of our earth, I am realizing the sun that warmed my grandmother’s skin is the same one that rose at Table Mountain. The soil where we planted beans comes from the same place as the soil the centipedes of Pisgah National Forest live in. It is possible to be Chinese and American, rather than Chinese or American. Not only is it possible to be both, but this intersection is what makes my existence possible. Just as I am not possible without the cycle of water underground and into the atmosphere, or the cycle of nitrogen in the food I eat and that makes the tissues of my body.

Some combination of working with plants in my early childhood and hiking outside in my young adult years led me to working for NOLS as a Fellow, NOLS’ program for creating structured pathways for People of Color to become instructors. In some spiraling way, outdoor experiences have continued to reappear in my life, rendering me as a gardener close to home and as a first generation immigrant exploring the landscape of a country my ancestors never set foot on.

When I think about why I chose to include outdoor education into my career path, I think about wanting to share the belief that the earth can give us wisdom if we are open to receiving it, and an inkling that our identities are intertwined with how we experience the outdoors. And how bringing our identities into the work that we do allows us to weave professional and personal growth together.