This page was created by Alison Morgan. The last update was by students at Xavier University.
Metal to Wood
By now it's 9 at night and John is heading home. The taxi drops him off and he heads towards and opens the door. He immediately bombarded and tackled by his two kids who are in their pajamas. After wrestling around with them for a bit he sends them to bed and goes to the kitchen where his wife has prepared dinner for him, which has now been set out for a couple hours. She’s laying on the couch in the living room which can be seen from the kitchen. John heats up his plate and moves to the couch. Linda can tell he is not in a good mood and asks what's wrong. “Work just has me down. Thank God for this vacation.” She kisses him on the forehead and goes back to reading her book while John eats the burger and mashed potatoes that his wife had made. John is tired and ready to hit the hay after a long day of work and heads to bed after washing his dishes.
5:30 AM rolls around quickly as the high pitch sounds of an alarm clock is heard. John quickly whips his arm around and slams his alarm clock, incidentally breaking it. “Well, that’s a fantastic start to the day,” John says in an exasperated voice. He walks into the bathroom, takes a shower, brushes his teeth, and walks to the kitchen to get his coffee and toast. He grabs the daily paper and takes his coffee to the couch. Linda comes out in her work uniform as she is about to head to her job as well. John sighs as he knows that means he needs to leave for work, “Hopefully Sidney shows up today, I need to get home early,” John murmurs to himself. He gets off the couch, opens the door, and steps outside. He’s instantly hit with a delight smell. It smells like dirt and trees. It’s raining. John sighs again as he runs down the street to the subway station. He finds his normal train and is on his way to work because he knows that Linda will want to take the car in this weather.
The work day drags on for John. He catches himself looking at the clock constantly and every time he looks, only 10 minutes have passed since the last time he looked. Lunch finally rolls around and he’s packed himself leftovers from home. He takes the length of his lunch break before he gets back to work. John sits back down at his desk and sees he’s got an email from his wife telling him to not be too late tonight because she wants to get on the road as soon as possible. “You and me both, hun,” John murmurs to himself. Work starts to pile up right before 5 o’clock; which is when John is supposed to leave. Sidney walks up over to John’s desk with a red nose and a stuffy voice. “Hey John, I heard you did all my work for me while I was gone and I heard you were going on vacation tomorrow so I just came over to ask if you wanted me to finish up your work for you so you can get out of here as quick as possible,” says Sidney. John is taken back by this! He is unsure of what to say, though, because he sees that Sidney is miserable but he knows that he can’t get all this work done and be home at a reasonable hour. He decides to split the work with Sidney and ends up getting out of work around the time he wanted to. He gets home and to his surprise all his bags are packed and the whole family is ready to go! “Grandma! Grandma! Grandma!” the kids shout in excitement as they know it's time to leave. “Let me get some food and go to the bathroom before we head out,” says John, “Has everyone else gone to the bathroom before we go?” Both kids nod their heads.
John exits the bathroom and the whole family heads out the door. “Oh my gosh, what about Bandit?” exclaims Rob, the youngest of the two kids. “Wow, I guess he’ll just have to come with us!” says John. John was planning on taking Bandit, their golden retriever, the whole time and wanted to surprise the kids by taking him. Rob and Jenna, the eldest of the two, smile. Once Bandit is in the car, they head out. It’s a long drive, approximately 20 hours. About 3 hours in everyone's asleep except for John and Bandit. “This is why you’re man’s best friend,” chuckles John. Next to the road he sees nothing but trees and he sees how majestic and beautiful they are. The trees go on for miles next to the highway and John can hardly keep his eyes on the road. He wishes everyone else could see this but he doesn’t want to risk anyone getting grumpy because their dad wants them to look at some trees, but John loves the view. A couple hours later, John gets off the highway somewhere in Indiana to get a motel, they’ve been driving for almost ten hours and John needs to sleep so he can get through the rest of the trip tomorrow. He wakes everyone up, “Are we there yet?” asks John, “Not even close,” says Jenna. They get a room and immediately fall asleep.
The hotel phone rings, “Hello?” says John in a groggy voice. “Hello, this is the wake up call you requested,” says the female voice on the other end, “Thanks,” responds John. He hangs up the phone and rolls over in the still hotel bed and looks at the clock. 7 am. He then proceeds to wake everyone else up and get back on the road. After a terrible hotel breakfast that Rob complained about for 20 minutes the family drops by the local McDonalds and then they get back on the road to Kansas. This is the first time that John and the kids have ever been to Kansas. “What’s grandma’s like mom?” asks Rob. “Well, they live on a ranch so there’s lots of open pastures and cows. You’ll love it, there’s plenty to explore,” responds Linda, “I’ll even teach you how to ride a horse.” Now, John has been married to Linda for 5 years and has never met her mother, her father passed away before the two started dating, and he was nervous because he had experienced anything like he would while in Kansas. John wanted to impress Linda and her mom by handling the situation well but he had no idea how he was going to do that.
“Here we are!” exclaims Linda. John can hear the happiness in her voice, she hadn’t been back here since she was in her twenties. They pull up to the house and it looks like a log cabin. “THIS is where we are staying for the next 3 nights?” says Jenna in a defeated voice, “Come on! It’ll be fun!” says Rob. It’s about 7pm when they arrive so they go inside and find out which room they are staying in. They open the door to the delicious smell of pork and thyme. “Grandma!” Rob yells in excitement. He runs up and gives her a hug, and the rest of the family proceeds to do the same. “I’ve prepared a big dinner, I hope y’all are hungry,” says grandma with a big smile on her face. The whole family sits down at dinner. Everyone is beat from the trip so as soon as everyone is done eating everyone goes straight to bed because they’re excited to see what tomorrow has in store for them. Well that and the fact they’re all exhausted from the trip. John goes to bed excited and nervous, he needs to make a good impression in front of his wife’s mom but is also excited for everything in store.
John opens his eyes and to his surprise, his wife is already out of bed. There aren’t any alarm clocks in the bedroom he is in so he checks his phone and it’s 8 am. He rolls out of bed and heads for the shower, after that he runs into his wife who is holding three cowboy hats and smiling from ear to ear. “Really?” says John, “Really,” replies Linda. So, John gets dressed in all his cowboy get up and heads outside where he is met by the crisp Kansas air. He’s standing on the front porch and looks over the two pastures in front of him, both stretch for miles. His kids come outside and stand next to him, “Mommy says we are going to learn how to ride horses today!” says Rob. “Then let’s get over to the horses!” replies John. The two proceed to run over to the horses to see who will get there first. Rob does. He looks at the horses in their pins, they’re big and beautiful creatures, their hair glossy and their tails are primped to perfection. John arrives soon after and is awestruck by the horses and immediately wants to ride a brown horse. This horse looks strong and intelligent. Before John can walk over to the pen that this horse is in, Linda and Jenna walk up and are ready to ride. John learns that this horse’s name is Slim, ironically enough, and gets the chance to ride him. After a while of practicing riding, the whole family decides to take a stroll into one of the pastures. “We won’t do any galloping today, we will get to that,” says Linda. So, the group walks their horses in one of the vast pastures that is on the land. They ride for miles among the tall grass and trees. John looks over the landscape and is immediately relaxed and brought to a peaceful state. He stops his horse and just looks at all wonderful life that is surrounding him. “John? JOHN!” yells Linda, “We’re headed back, let’s get going.” John nods and turns Slim around and walks him back.
Once back at the house, grandma has prepared lunch. After that the kids go out and play on the tire swing while Linda and grandma show John around the cabin. In there, there are a lot of little nature paintings. John asks about these and grandma says that their grandpa loved having them because he always looked at them and no matter what mood he was in, they would cheer him up. There’s one television downstairs for playing movies and that’s about the only electronic in the whole house. Later that day they decide to head into town for dinner and eat at a little hole in the wall diner. They have an amazing dinner and head back to the ranch. Everyone heads to bed except for Linda and John. Linda tells John she has something to show him. There’s a school bus in one of the pastures that has a perfect view of the sun set. They both climb up on the bus and sit on the top. The sun is setting quick and the sky is becoming a shade of orange and yellow. It’s beautiful, John is transfixed on it and he completely forgets about the stressful life back home in New York. He feels a sense of happiness and comfort. “It’s beautiful,” says John. “I know, this is my favorite spot and I thought you would love it,” responds Linda. They sit there for what seems like eternity just watching the sunset. Once the earth has consumed the sun, the couple walks back to the cabin and falls asleep.
Today is the last day they will be spending on the ranch and Rob wants to see the cows so, the family decides to pack a picnic and head into a pasture where there are cows. So, they got up around 9 and rode around the four wheeler that was in the garage that’s located next to the cabin. After a while riding that around, the family packs lunch together so that everyone gets everything they want. Then, they head out. Grandma has an offroad car so they take that to the pasture that as all the cows. Once there, they hop out, and Bandit goes off into the distance barking at who knows what. The rest of the family walks around looking for a tree to set their blanket under. They find the perfect tree and set up their lunch. They’re completely surrounded by the tall grass so that when they sit down they can barely see over it. Next to them is a river, it still has a little bit of flowing water but not as much at usual because Kansas was experiencing a minor drought. They finish their lunch and Rob wants to go see the cows. No one really wants to go but John finally gives in after minutes of Rob begging someone to go with him. There is a large hill located past the river so they head that way. Over the river and up the mountain they go. They look over the large pasture and see what looks to be a little group of cows. “They look like ants!” proclaims Rob. John just smiles, he’s looking over the landscape and realizes how vast the land is here. There’s no mountains, the land is flat, he can see for miles. It’s breathtaking. John feels safe and at home right where he is. He’s totally engrossed on everything around him. He realizes that he doesn’t want to leave, he doesn’t want to go back to his boring job surrounded by the tall metal buildings that reak of stress. He wants to be surrounded by nature, he feels different here, like he is being reborn into a whole new life. A happier life. “DAD,” Rob screams. He looks down. “What is it Rob?” John responds. “Can we go closer?” “We can try!”. So, the two run down the hill towards the cows but before they get close, they hear their family yelling at the dog to come back to them. The chuckle and keep on pushing forward to the cows. Then, out of nowhere, Bandit comes dashing in and scares all of the cows away. The herd sprints away from Rob and John. Although disappointed, Rob laughs at what has just occurred. Then they head back to the car and go back to the cabin where they all decide to take a nap.
When they all wake up, they smell something delicious. Grandma has made steak. They devour it and all head downstairs to watch a movie. Rob and Jenna fall asleep while watching the movie and John carries both of them to bed. Linda and John head back to the bus on their last night in Kansas to look at the glorious sunset one last time. It’s even more astounding than it was the night before. After the sun sets they head to bed. John can’t help but wanting to stay but he knows he can’t. He even dreams of a life here in Kansas living with grandma. He wakes up the next morning realizing it’s his last day. He slumps into the bathroom and gets his hygiene on once more before he has to pack. The whole family is at the table for breakfast when John comes out of his room with his bags. They have one last meal before leaving. After that they say their goodbyes to grandma and she tells John that she’s very happy that he is the one that married her daughter. He tells her that he wishes they could stay longer but the kids have to get back to school. They hop in the car and drive back to New York.
John can’t stop thinking about how much more enjoyable life would be out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nature. They get into Pennsylvania John looks to his left and sees a bunch of machinery cutting down a forest to make room for a shopping mall. Usually John wouldn’t be phased by this, but now he has a wrench in his stomach after seeing this. He wishes he could stop this but he’s a nobody. Rather, he’s someone who can't stop this. Once home everyone goes straight to bed except John who is reminiscing on his trip. He keeps thinking about the amazing adventures he went on, all the beautiful nature he saw, and how much this trip relaxed him. He doesn’t go back to work for another couple days so he’s not worried about that, so he just relaxes the rest of the days and takes in everything that has happened these past four days. The nature that surrounded him has changed him. He decides that he is going to recycle whenever possible, use renewable water bottles, and support the preservation of nature in any way that he can.
Artist's Statement
My name is Jackson Yaggi, I’m from Greenfield, Indiana, and I am a current sophomore at Xavier University where I am studying accounting. When it comes to nature, I definitely feel that it is underappreciated and hope that this paper will open people’s eyes to the wonders of nature.My definition of green literature is when the person in the story is changed by nature. They become engrossed by the beauty of the nature so much that they experience an uplifting in spirit as well as the character developing sympathy towards nature. By the end of this piece of literature, the main character, and maybe even the characters that surround him/her, want to help preserve the beauty that they were just around. To be defined as "green literature" the author has to show the reader that the characters in the story have been positively impacted by the nature they were around. In my story, I show that John was miserable at work where he was surrounded by nothing but technology and big metal buildings. Once he gets to Kansas and the wide open fields, his unpleasant mood is reversed because wherever he looks, he sees something that he has never seen before and everything around him is lush and perfect in his eyes. He does a lot of fun things while at this ranch that open him up to all the things that nature has to offer him and he doesn’t take anything for granted while he is there.
When it is time to leave and John heads back to the city, he has been impacted enough by the ranch that he decides to make an effort to try and preserve nature in any way that he can. I really think this shows the reader that going to a place where there’s nothing but trees and grass and animals can really impact your outlook on nature and the feelings that come with being around such a striking place.
Media: Morgan, Kasie. Ranch Sunset. Digital image. Fine Art America. 15 Nov. 2012. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.
