Four Seasons

Robert Marra

For the Clock

rlmarra@plymouth.edu

We as New Englanders have the nearly unparalleled privilege of conceiving something out of nothing, as the intrinsic value of mother nature’s beauty continues to leave me speechless for at least a few days out of every season, for the past 21 years.

Recently, the autumnal leaf peepers have given us a chance to bolster our economy, although we had a rather busy summer. Who can blame them though? If you haven’t seen the sights of northern New Hampshire in particular I urge you to experience it at least once in the autumn, it is truly stunning. Our summers here in NH? Unbelievable.

In my town, I can barely walk outside of my house in the dead of summer without getting hit by a car, yet in mud season, that kind of grey time of year, I could probably lay in the middle of the main road for an hour without any worries about getting nailed by a car.

There’s good reason for it though, I mean, we have ridiculous natural formations to gaze at and a bunch of great swimming holes for when it’s 90 something degrees out. Not to mention our local food and drinks are always a hit, and there’s something about that New Hampshire-y old home feeling that keep tourists and past residents coming back over and over again.

Our state, and the surrounding states are breathtakingly picturesque. They are the basis of people’s imaginations when they imagine a perfect place, with an island in the Bahamas coming in close second, I’d say.

The people who take this as a given, a right, or simply can’t even avert their eyes from society or their duties to it, I feel great mourning for, because I cannot even conceptualize the inherent boredom and misery they must feel. I can’t feel like I personally deserve any of what the natural world provides for us on any given day, and that is perhaps the most baffling concept to me.

We spend our whole lives working towards feeling appreciated by whoever, yet nature has made us her top priority since the dawn of mankind, rich, or poor.

I personally find myself too young for church and too old for self-pity, and the beauty of nature fits soundly in the middle. Part of the live free or die state's biggest selling point is the notion we all have the freedom to let the bad parts of our lives fall out of our consciousness, if even for but a moment, by the vast beauty of something that simply is because it is.

That’s why every fall in New Hampshire reminds me of why I call this place my home.