Finding One’s Authentic Self
by Diane Lundegaard, Dix Hills, NY
The way they walked took them through a suburban slice of the Long Island Pine Barrens which meandered like a lazy river between the High School and Janet’s house. Janet had recently moved from Manhattan and into the neighborhood where her new friends, classmates, Melissa, Tori and Gina lived.
Although well-tempered and friendly herself, Janet’s mother was a controlling woman. Out from her came a steady stream of negativity. Her constant admonitions resulted in Janet being unsure of herself, unable to feel comfortable in the world, let alone in her own skin. Her mother didn’t understand why Janet might want to do things, like join a nature club. “You’ll get poison ivy or stung by a bee, and don’t think you can come crying home to me.”
As a city slicker, Janet didn’t know much about the natural world although she sometimes wondered about trees and flowers and all those creatures great and small. Janet’s friends on the other hand, having been raised on the Island were not only fairly well acquainted with the natural environment, but also loved it. Concerned for the protection of its forests, such as the Pine Barrens and their ground water resources, the high school sophomores formed an after-school nature club and invited Janet to join it.
Winter this year had been tough, higher than usual snowfall kept the girls indoors for most of the season. As a result, a sort of cabin fever had been rampant among the school district’s population; so much so that for the girls their pent-up energy was more than ready for outdoor release. Their voices, tinged with the ring of their heartfelt enthusiasm for the start of better weather sounded joyfully throughout the scrub oak and pitch pine woods as they entered the forest. Spring had arrived and the girls could finally hold a meeting of their nature club outdoors. The trail they walked would give them enough time to do some exploring and still get their homework done.
“Hurry up Janet,” laughed Tori, the club’s president. Her blond wavy hair seemed to float on the spring breeze that carried the scent of the Atlantic from the Island’s south shore towards its center where the girls lived.
“Come on girl, hurry up!” repeated Tori with another hearty laugh to encourage her friend.
Through her dark brooding eyes Janet looked ahead at the girls, then down at the damp vines that covered the foot path. Waves of uncertainty and trepidation mingled with a desire to catch up with her classmates rankled through every fiber of Janet’s being.
“You’ll ruin your shoes, and knowing you, you’ll either trip over a log or get poked in the eye by a twig.” Again, and again her mother’s negativity tore her apart.
Meanwhile, Janet’s friends began playfully weaving on and off the trail. They congratulated themselves when they identified the birds they saw darting from the tree tops to the understory as warblers and bluebirds and began taking pictures of them with their iPhones. They also took pictures of the chipmunks they discovered romping through the tall grass and thickets. They shared their snapshots with one another, texting back and forth more images of the emerging season, such as flowers, like those bell-shaped ones growing in large clusters on the blueberry bushes, and also of the pink perfumy mayflowers that matted the ground, one of the first signs of spring
“Come on Janet,” they called one after another, then in unison, “Use your phone. Take pictures with us.” Melissa, waving her arms and jumping up and down, cried out, “look, over there, there’s a nest hanging from the tip of a branch that looks like a small Easter basket!” The girls pointed their cameras and began taking pictures of the nest, an Oriole’s woven construction that dangled, as if in mid-air high above them.
Janet lifted her eyes and took a step forward. Suddenly, something deep within her had shifted. Perhaps moved by the persistence of girls, she took another step forward and this time, when she did so, she felt something that she would later describe as a first sense of her authentic self. When the girls had called out to her, she had heard their enthusiasm for living and not her mother’s negative attitude towards life, an attitude that made it difficult for Janet to understand life in terms other than fearful of defeat. Janet let herself listen not only to the instinctive wisdom of her friends, but more importantly, to her own inner voice.
For the first time she felt the courage to ignore the voice that had held her back for so many years. Instead of hearing, “you’ll get hurt, soil your clothes, or, why on earth would you want to do that?” Janet opened up to the idea of testing for herself with rational caution, what might be dangerous and what might be safe. What she heard in the voice of her friends, unlike that which she heard in her mother’s voice, was the healthy call of desire, of a want and need to explore the fullest range of life possible, and this rang true to her. Janet would begin making some rules of her own. She had felt the truth of the moment and heeded its call.
Janet removed her phone from her backpack, swiped open the screen and tapped the camera icon. She took a picture of a robin perched high up in a tree singing its song, its own song, a merry tune announcing spring. She caught up with her friends. Janet’s dark eyes now sparkled instead of brooded. She had discovered a certain awareness of self that had begun to release her from the negative conditioning and limiting behavioral patterns that had been its suppresser.
Diane Lundegaard, a Long Island native, is a freelance writer and environmental educator.
