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Romanticism & Intentional Time Outdoors

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Last week’s presentation on Romanticism stayed with me after class ended. Instead of just thinking about it as a historical movement, I found myself thinking about the centuries before us. The landscapes people wrote about and made paintings of, and about the earth before modern infrastructure.  Romanticism emphasizes emotion, imagination, individual experience, and a deep honor for nature. After class on Tuesday, I walked home thinking about how disconnected my life can feel from those ideas, being in a fast-paced environment that focuses on school and the future. By the time I reached my house, I was researching classic novels from older time periods. Something about reading literature written in a slower world gave me the idea that it could help me slow down more. I called my grandfather to talk to him about it, and we ended up building a “to-read” list together (he is an avid reader)! He had gifted me a Kindle last year, and I became excited to use it for this new quest. Since ...
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Nature Brings Peace :)

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This past weekend, I drove to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville to visit my best friend. The trip was only a few hundred miles from Fort Worth, yet the landscape felt entirely different. As soon as I crossed the Arkansas state line, I felt a shift in my emotions.  The first thing I noticed was the trees. They were lining the highways, in endless clumps along hills and around water. In Fort Worth, the land often feels open and flat, and it is either a long stretch of dirt or a construction zone. In Arkansas, the scenery feels enclosed, but it is wrapped in greenery, and as you drive, you uncover more nature. The drive itself felt calming. I rode with my sunroof open and the windows down for the majority of the drive, letting myself look around and enjoy where I was.  Walking around Fayetteville, I kept noticing differences. The plants were diverse and not as curated as the TCU gardens. Our gardens are beautiful, but I liked seeing the natural state of cacti and other p...
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15 Mile Walk in Fort Worth

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Two Sundays ago, before the Super Bowl, my best friend/roommate and I decided to walk fifteen miles around Fort Worth. We started at 12:30 in the afternoon and did not finish until a little after 5:00. What began as something casual quickly turned into an immersive way of seeing the city and noticing the nature that surrounds our campus.   We covered TCU’s campus, the surrounding neighborhoods, much of University, and eventually connected to the Trinity River Trail. From there, we walked past Clearfork and Press Cafe, one of my favorite restaurants. After our fourth mile, and a cup of water from a restaurant we passed, I proposed that we put our phones away and walk quietly for a while. I wanted to see how Maddie's and my observations would differ.  One of the first things Maddie noticed was how many people were out (though it was a really nice day). Families pushed strollers along the trail, and the runners and bikers passing us were never-ending. Even in the four neighborhoo...
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Snow

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Last week, Fort Worth experienced winter weather, including snow, sleet, and ice. While the city received only a few inches of snow, walking around campus that day felt completely different from any other day. On the morning of Sunday, January 25th, I decided to take a short walk near my house around ten in the morning. When I stepped outside, the campus looked like a quiet winter scene, covered in thin layers of powdery snow, with icicles hanging from my house and trees. Some patches of the ground were slick with ice, while others crunched softly beneath my shoes. I layered up to stay warm, but the cold felt refreshing (it "felt like" -1 degrees on my weather app). The sun was shining brightly, which made the snow sparkle, a contrast to the gray skies from the day before. I realized I enjoy cold weather when there is no rain, wind, or clouds! On a normal morning, the streets around campus are filled with cars, students walking to class, and background noise from everyday lif...
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Nature Outings before Treks & Texts

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 Hello blog! I figured it would be fun for my first post to be about the way I view/enjoy nature prior to this course. My current stance is that I already spend a good amount of time outside, but I am hoping to find more activities that I can do outside. I walk everyday because it helps me decompress and take breaks, but I will usually be on the phone or listening to a podcast, so I am going to try to have more mindful walks. I like to walk with people a lot as well! That is what inspired the name of my blog, Where Sasha Walks - especially because I will likely be walking more than I already do and noting what I see around TCU/Fort Worth on these walks.  Some other things I have done outdoors that I truly love includes reading and eating outside, going on bike rides, swimming, tanning, and doing other activities in the water, and horseback riding. I grew up in Arkansas and Oregon before moving to Dallas, and both states were beautiful in unique ways. In Arkansas, my family wen...
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