Get Out! GAY Magazine – Issue 437 September 25, 2019

BY IAN-MICHAEL BERGERON
@ianmichaelinwonderland
As the final days of summer dwindle
down, several friends and I rented a car
and drove upstate to Pine Meadow Trail.
It’s always nice to get out of Manhattan,
even if it isn’t far or for long. When the
only nature you see on a daily basis
includes trees growing haphazardly over
busy streets and potted plants on fire
escapes, it’s healthy to remind yourself
what it’s like in the wild.
I hiked the only way I know how: in a
semi-sheer top and matching speedo
by Nathan Ayon, barely hidden under
sheer shorts.
Sandwiches
and wine in our
backpacks, we
set out for Pine
Meadow Lake.
I remembered
an essay
I wrote in
college: The
course was
supposed
to be on
nature essays
(in general)
but became
dedicated to
Ralph Waldo
Emerson
(specifically).
Now, I have
nothing against
Emerson, but
an entire class
on him bled
me dry. So, for
our final essay (prompt: walk in nature
and write about it), I decided to give a
middle finger to nature essays.
I wrote about walking through a mall
as if I were walking the Pine Meadow
Trail, describing the teenage mallrats as
if they were the squirrels I saw upstate,
describing the plastic plants placed
nonchalantly in the middle of the mall
walkways as if they were the trees that
stretched all around me. I suppose I
thought I was rather deep—and maybe I
was. Marrs loved what I’d intended as a
On Nature
“Fuck nature” essay and submitted it to
a publication, a book which I still have on
my bookshelf at home. (The $300 I got
is long gone; I’m sure spent on various
items of sheer clothing.)
Smiling at the memory, I brought myself
back to reality, bringing up the rear
of our voyage to the lake. The thing I
believe I like most about being in nature
like that is that I could be anywhere,
at any time in my life: Maybe I’m in
upstate New York, and tomorrow I have
to be back at work; maybe I’m in Iowa,
a teenager, and I know I have a paper
due the next day;
maybe I’m in
Minnesota, in my
early 20s, my thenfiance
(now exfiance)
at my side.
The sight of my
boyfriend walking
several feet before
me reminds me
where, and when,
I am.
At the lake, we all
stripped down to
our bathing suits,
and my best friend
challenged me to
swim to a large
rock in the middle
of the lake. I took
him up on the
offer and jumped
in: I haven’t swum
like that since I
was a kid, and
suddenly I was
10 years old again, swimming laps with
my dad at the local pool. My friend and
I made it to the rock out of breath, and
out of shape.
“You know,” he said to me, breathing
heavy, “now we have to swim back.”
My apartment called my name, with its
potted plants on the fire escape and
the tree leaning haphazardly toward my
window, Chinese delivery just a phone
call away. “Fuck nature,” I smiled. “Let’s
go.”