Guest post by Simone Madsen

Although I never had Simone in school I remembered her and
recently reconnected with her through her work as executive director of
the Southeast Tennessee Resource Conservation & Development Council.

Think about the first memory you have of enjoying being outside. Stretch as far back as you can recall. It may be something small – a temperature, the shade of a tree, the smell of rain on wet pavement. Hold it in your mind and keep it there.

My earliest memory of enjoying being outside was really uneventful. I was maybe 4. The seasons were swinging from the chill of winter to the thaw of spring. It wasn’t warm enough to go without a coat, but it was warm enough to stick my hands in the storm water fed ditch in front of my house. Numb and nimble, searching through leaf litter and pebbles for signs of life – bugs and crawfish – that would be the first tell-tale wriggle that life was coming back to a sleepy land. Knees wet and muddy, wind whipping any exposed skin, I gathered my catch into clear glass jelly jars to watch them flit backwards and hide on whatever side my refracted face was not. I wouldn’t keep them – my house was not like their house. And any time I must have tried before, it seemed to only make them slower and less happy. So after a few minutes, back into the cold ditch they went – flapping tails and legs scratching desperately to hide in the ditch bed. I knew every inch of this poor excuse for a creek. Because I couldn’t stay out of it. This is the earliest joy I remember from the great outdoors.

I grew up with a foot in both worlds – living at the heart of a small city nestled in the country, I mean smack dab middle of commerce and communion. Surrounded by the foothills of the Appalachia’s, Highway 127, and the now abandoned woods – sometime, before I was born, we began retreating to yards and parks and paths. I don’t know when it happened, but it was something that was understood by the time I toddled into the wider world. Many places hadn’t seen people in decades. I could tell by the stuff they left behind. Rusted bike parts, abandoned clothes, toys I had never seen people play with.

In both worlds, I liked to talk – a lot – and make art, but I loved learning about the world of living things and their habitat. I loved the questioning nature of science. The first real biology I encountered was in second grade. Ms. Melissa was a new teacher, carrying with her, I like to imagine, the passion of youth and a heart dedicated to making a change. She introduced us to science in a way I had never really encountered before – I was born a naturalist, but the whet stone of education sharpened me into a scientist. We were asked to name, one day, all the animals we knew. If I recall correctly, I could name more than any other person – I knew 133 different animals. I skipped all my work that day to work on it. I didn’t cheat. But I had to think about it – and think about all the books, to that point, I had ever opened that even had a picture of an animal in it. I was grateful for my mother’s investment in encyclopedias then. I don’t think I ended up winning the prize (because, historically, I am not a direction follower) but an ability was recognized and encouraged after that. That little extra attention sparked a fire.

I failed a lot of assignments because I didn’t like homework. I would excel on tests. I wouldn’t find out till much later that I actually have a learning disorder – ADHD- primarily inattentive. But my love of the natural world and fascination with science made it easy to balance out a mediocre grade. And inbetween, I self-medicated with the outdoors. Connecting with the habitat that I missed while I was locked in concrete buildings 8 hours a day. In college, getting my hands and boots into a murky wetland was the only thing that kept me from dropping out. It was the only way to de-stress.

And with everything I learned in my time running the marathon of education – here are the things I carry with me.

1. The number one cause of species decline and extinction is habitat loss and alteration.

2. All living things require a habitat to survive.

3. I was a living thing.

My love of living things, including myself and everyone I knew, and the things I learned, forced me to feel new things brighter. Anger, passion, hope. I sharpened my intellect yet again, and put it to work. I learned to become an environmental scientist – a conservationist – a person that seeks to find a balance between humans, their habitat, and their ecosystem cohorts. That’s what I do today.

Earlier, I had asked you to picture your first memory of enjoying nature – whatever it is, I want you to think of it again. But also consider the words of Baba Dioum, a Sengalese Forester and Conservationist –

"In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught." 

This is the beginning of your environmental ethic. What ties you to your habitat.

You will only conserve what you love – My fondest memories are elbow deep in the creeks and streams of Tennessee.

You will Only Love what you understand – Because I loved them, I watched them. I never took my eyes off of the water. If there was a puddle to play in, you’d find me there. I knew every rock in my little ditch.

You will understand only what you’re taught – every thing I learned built a case for self-preservation – that we are living things, and we cannot reasonably separate ourselves, or as in the case of my crawfish friends – any mud bug from its environment. To do so is suffering. To do so is loss.

The edge that education gave to my wit is the blade by which I defend myself. And it began with the first stepping stone of building environmental ethic.

Hold on to that memory I asked you about before. It’s more important than you realize. My life depended on mine, and indeed, shaped mine. It gave me a purpose and a vision, even if my four-year-old self couldn’t see it at the time.

When you go from here – I wonder, where will your mind wander? And if you go there, will you find it changed?

Simone with my friend, Mariah Phillips, who is running
for Congress in our district.