Sculpted Nature

Alright, so I posted this as a story, but it's more of an essay. It reminds me a a scholastic essay, but it was highly enjoyable to write.

One of my favourite topics of interest in Japan was all about how humans have been involved in sculpting all parts of the environment, even nature.  Certainly, there are more rugged areas that have been less influenced.  However, even when you reach a sea of glistening trees with no impact to be seen by the naked eye, even way out there in the distance beyond... all along the trail you walk, there is exactly that -- a sculpted trail.  Wooden and stone stairs built into a walk way, seeming as if molded into the ground, hundreds of years prior --- certainly they must be newer than this?  How often does one go out to restore these embedded paths? Who is the lucky individual that hammered these floored nature walkways out into the depths of the forested woods?  How many are the footprints that impact these stairs and how long have these pathways been laid away?

Well, I have always viewed American nature as far more rugged.  The country is so much larger, there's just so much space, so it is not as easy to lay the paths in every location.  I imagine places like the deserts of Arizona, and the Grand Canyon, as they stretch into each other, certainly their paths cannot be as foot deep as the ones in Japan?  The truth is, I have not been to those specific locations, it is just a strong image that I have.  Japan is highly sculpted, while the American counter part tends to be so much more raw.

Today I stepped foot into a garden that reminded me of Japan.  The scenery was so heavily sculpted, it was like a photograph from a picture perfect Japanese garden book.  It had nothing of the American essence that I have ever imagined to be so.  To know that there were such beautiful places even still so near by, it warmed my heart.  I love Japan and I miss it so.  I want to return some day, but not today.  So until that day, I will bask in the memories that I cling to so dearly, knowing that the impressions those builders left in the mountains that are now a half a world away, are still pressing deeply into the precious reaches of my mind, heart, soul.