The air is lighter in spring. The nights are cool, the days temperate and warm. Plants and trees awake from their winter slumber and burst into color. I have lived most of my life at ASU oblivious to the natural beauty of campus. Though they offered shade on torrid summer days and once saved me from dizzy dehydration one blazing afternoon as I sucked the juice from a small armful of bitter oranges, the trees were always just part of the scenery, no different from faces in the crowd.
Only last week I looked up and examined what was before me. I was riding my bike through campus one evening on my way to a writers meeting. Nearing the Matthews Center where we convene, I decided to continue exploring. Pedaling as the sun dipped low on the horizon, I stopped my bicycle to perambulate Rural Rd.
Beside one of Tempe's busiest streets, amid the lingering heat and smell of petroleum, I noticed the Palo Verdes in bloom.
Observing the Palo VerdesPhoto by Noemi Gonzalez
Into the wild.Photo by Noemi Gonzalez
Dangerously ClosePhoto by Noemi Gonzalez
The Palo Verdes are green-trunked trees draped in small yellow flowers. They demanded my attention in the twilight and I remembered an Ezra Pound poem titled "In a Station of the Metro." I have been considering this short poem since the first time I hated it in a literature class at ASU:
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Pound sets before us two images and asks us to consider them. I always hated this poem; I didn't understand it and quickly became exhausted from trying to. But, while taking photographs of the Palo Verdes, I began to make sense of it.
The most important thing I have learned about being a photographer is to walk everywhere with camera in tow. I have an old Nikon SLR that would have served me better for my spontaneous shoot, but it sat on my desk miles away, so I used my phone. Clad in black, the device is almost invisible at dusk. I got some very strange looks as I circled trees and plants, examining flowers.
Capturing the ContrastPhoto by Ryan Marcus-Espinoza
Captured and TastyPhoto by Noemi Gonzalez
Among the yellow creatures.Photo by Noemi Gonzalez
Stopping among the living.Photo by Noemi Gonzalez
After numerous photographs as I mumbled incessantly to myself, I began to understand Pound's poem. "The apparition of these faces in the crowd" — I had become so engrossed in the trees in bloom around me that I barely noticed crowds on campus. They became almost hazy, an insignificant part of the landscape. "Petals on a wet, black bough" — Nature, even in our urbanized corner of Tempe, had captivated me completely.
For Ryan Garcia, 43, executive chef at Engrained Cafe in the Memorial Union, spring is a time of inspiration. The season provides him with an abundance of produce, a palate of colors and flavors as vivid and fresh as the season itself.
"You're thinking of the actual product and not trying to drown it. It's keeping real with what you're working with," Garcia says.
Cuisine in spring evolves with the season, growing lighter, simpler and more causal as we move toward summer.
"When it comes to spring, you're thinking of concerts in the park, picnics. You're talking lighter foods, lighter flavors," Garcia says.
Bianca Zietal, a biology and society major, is the president of ASU Grow, a gardening club on the Tempe campus. For Zietal, spring is a time of work and expectation spent overseeing her crop's health and growth.
"In addition to plants and seeds germinating, you have weeds so it's this sort of turf battle. Once you remove the weeds, you can progress smoothly into the summertime, but the spring is sort of this territorial battle for seed space," Zietal says.
Zietal believes her connection with nature is something humans inherently share.
"There is a certain point to which people need nature and they seek it out. There is a sort of healing quality of nature that I think most humans would acknowledge. Being around beauty is peaceful," Zietal says.
Unlike a piece of art, a tree or a landscape is unframed. To observe a landscape is to become a part of beauty itself. The immersion is calming, cathartic.
Growing Branches.Photo by Noemi Gonzalez
Mike Schantel is the assistant supervisor of grounds services on the Tempe campus. He has been here for 25 years, and his favorite thing about spring is the birds that flutter overhead as we talk outside the Memorial Union.
"Twenty-one," he responds when I ask his age. He laughs heartily, unrestrained. There are deep smiling wrinkles in Schantel's face; his skin is cured olive from sunlight. The first time I meet with him, he wears a black suit and is on his way to a graduation ceremony. His crew is in an uproar, howling with laughter as Schantel's equipment-laden golf cart comes to a stop.
"This time of year, everything starts coming out of hibernation. The campus just comes alive. Everything turns green and start blossoming," Schantel said.
On the HuntPhoto by Ryan Marcus-Espinoza
A Penetrating MovePhoto by Ryan Marcus-Espinoza
Hovering for a MomentPhoto by Noemi Gonzalez
Nature and SciencePhoto by Noemi Gonzalez
Close up: EatPhoto by Noemi Gonzalez
Spring is a sensual season that defies written expression. There air is new, crisp with the promise of growth and renewal. We talk of simplicity in spring because its beauty is easy to appreciate with all of the senses.
And it is fast dwindling. By week's end, we are due for ninety-degree weather, the first temperature spike of many in the climb toward the Phoenician summer inferno. So before they are gone and while they now blossom, take a minute to look into the trees, but be warned — you may find yourself lost.
Celebrating SpringPhoto by Noemi Gonzalez
Reach the writer at rjespin1@asu.edu or via Twitter @scotchandfoie
