Celebrating Earth Day 2025

Late summer sun peaking through the tree canopy. Green and gold grass threading their fingers together. The sound of giggled whispers melding with the sound of water slipping down the creekbed. The sun-faded fabric of cotton dresses, hems soaked as we sat on the bank swirling our feet in the water. I can still recall the smell of the breeze– clean and fragranced with flowers and whatever else makes summer air my favorite scent. Nature is the background of my most nostalgic memories, subsequently becoming the setting I sweep across my mind when I need an escape. When I think of the hazy past that was my childhood, I always find myself back at the creek. 

Hidden behind tangles of plants that have been growing untouched by human hands, the creek is wild and unpredictable and no matter how well you think you know the place you always have the opportunity to get lost. That’s half of the fun. 
Whenever the sky was blue, my aunt would take my siblings and me to picnic at the creek. We’d lay out a mix-match assortment of blankets and snacks and then she’d set us loose, the five of us scattering in opposite directions with no particular destination in mind. In the spring we’d climb trees and lay in the grass. In the summer we’d catch tadpoles and read in the fresh air. We’d get lost in the seemingly endless wilderness and make little forts in the woods. I found beauty in the seemingly mundane things I noticed: the way the creek water curved against a rock, the feeling of a squishy piece of bark under my fingers, the way the light hit the canopy just so.

We would come home with dirt under our nails and our pockets full of whatever rocks and flowers we’d found. I didn’t know it then, but the peace I found there would ground me for the rest of my life. It was honest and real and I’ve been trying to keep that feeling alive– trying to find something to rival that feeling– ever since. So if you ever need to find me, I’m getting lost– scouring dirt paths, running my fingers through tall grass, taking deep inhales of the fragrant air, trying as hard as I can to find the magic we left at the creek.

Song: Before the Sun by Gregory Alan Isakov

During our first year of college, my hometown friends and I made sure to call weekly, updating each other on our current happenings. Last April, our conversation transitioned into how much we missed the Bay Area and its natural beauty. Knowing that the coming summer would likely be our last one spent together, my friends and I decided to book a camping trip in Henry Cowell State Park in Santa Cruz, a corner of home we hadn’t explored before.  

Once August arrived, my friends Bella, Elsa, and I met up, excitedly packed the car, stopped at Trader Joe’s (a necessity, of course), and embarked on our journey. Just two hours later, we unloaded into our camping grounds and, shortly after, scavenged the cooler for the lunches we had bought not too long ago. As I finished my peanut udon noodle salad, I realized how little time I’d had over the past year to sit down with nothing awaiting my attention, and I began to appreciate the undetermined freedom of the day ahead. 

We spent a few hours hiking before the afternoon arrived — usually my least favorite part of the day due to the typical lull I experience. Here, though, I noticed its absence. There wasn’t any inkling of burnout on the horizon; I felt blanketed by the life around me and comforted by the trees that lined the path back to our campsite. With ample time left, we sat around the picnic table and pondered how to spend the rest of our carefree day. Some silence passed before Elsa recalled the deck of cards she had waiting in her backpack. Now, these weren’t typical cards; this deck was themed the “Bears of America.” Any plans we had for a card game were out the window as Elsa turned on the speaker, and we began ranking the 56 bears in order of cuteness. 

This trip occurred about three months after Submarine by The Marías dropped, which fittingly took up most of our queue. When I listen back to those songs, specifically “Vicious Sensitive Robot,” I remember the card-sorting of the bears. While seemingly random and purposeless, the beautiful afternoon I spent in that park with friends I call family, sitting amongst the huge redwoods I had tree-hugged a couple hours earlier, is one of my most valuable memories. It continually reminds me that the most important times of our lives usually derive from lighthearted things we choose to do spontaneously, surrounded by loved ones and the serenity of nature we often take for granted.

Song: Vicious Sensitive Robot by The Marías

I was born and raised in Southern California and often take for granted just how lucky I am to be a short drive from the beaches, the mountains, and the chance to reconnect with nature away from the big cities. Growing up in the Inland Empire, Mountain High Ski Resort has always been my second home. Every winter, usually on New Year’s Day, my family and I head to Wrightwood, watching as the dirt turns into snow with each curve up the mountain as civilization gets farther and farther away.

For visitors like me, Wrightwood feels like an entirely different world, providing a few hours or days free from deadlines, stressors, and social media. The snowmen, pine trees, roof icicles, and Christmas lights are frozen in time and as far from the LA hustle and bustle as you can get. It’s a hard drive and securing your parking, passes, and gear is an even more difficult task. However, nothing compares to the feeling you get when the cold wind is blowing, the soft snow is falling, and the fresh mountain air is wafting through each trail while you’re speeding down the slopes. It gives me a cathartic high like no other that immediately transports me back to my childhood and a time when things felt so much simpler and peaceful. There’s truly no better way to usher in a new year and remind yourself how lucky you are to get to explore this Earth and all the meaning to be found in it. It’s just about as close to Hozier’s yell and a California stick season as you can get.

Song: The View Between Villages – Noah Kahan

I went to the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve a couple of years ago to see if there were any poppies growing there. I’d always heard stories about super blooms, times when the ordinarily dead yellow and black hills out in the desert would be full of colorful flowers. 

Normally, the peak viewing times are near the end of a really rainy season; think late March or April. When I hopped in my car to head over in June, I hadn’t realized it was already too late. All the flowers that would have been there that year had probably already died. 

I’m a pretty stubborn person, so I insisted on at least hiking over the mountain near the parking lot to see if there would be any stragglers in the valleys below. The drive to the park is surrounded on all sides by winding hills and gorges; you can’t really get a good view of the land beyond for essentially the entire way up; I was sure there would be something to see from the top. It was so windy it felt like my hair was about to blow off my head like a tumbleweed, but eventually I climbed the lone trail up. The whole way I looked around for signs of life, but I couldn’t even see any footprints in the dirt other than my own.

Any notions I had of what I was going to see vanished as soon as I reached the top. The pictures showed oceans of orange and yellow, so pervasive they almost masked the enormity of the valleys below; it seems so digestible, a quaint slice of nature that can be perfectly distilled into a 9×16 photo. Seeing it with your own eyes, the desert disabuses you of that notion. What the sky above does not swallow, it does. In the transitory moment between death and life, there is nothing but brown soil baked bare by the sun. The quiet echoes for miles around, not blocked by any natural landmarks except for the mountain chains dozens of miles away. Dotting the sparse landscape are sets of imposing gray metal windmills that stand straight in the distance, mirage-like blades slicing silently through the air. These come in packs; mankind’s mark, our attempt to impose order on an alien place. 

It felt breathtakingly real. Too real. In a way I can’t explain, it felt like I had been there before; like I had seen all of it. Maybe a dream had finally gone on too long and bled into real life. It felt like I was in a place I already knew. Maybe it was simply poorly remembered visions of the Grand Canyon, distorted by the years and rearing their head. Maybe it was just me going insane. I honestly don’t know.

Every time I listen to this song, it reminds me of that surreal feeling. Being immersed in an utterly alien sonic landscape until it feels strangely familiar, strangely real, more than even your own present reality. Bearing witness to such a strange and beautiful place above and below, the emotion evoked is ease, a quiet peace of mind. You’ve found yourself a kind of home here.

Song: Great Mother In The Sky by Lionmilk

Going to California, it’s hard to deny the beauty here. From the mountains to the sea, there’s variety & texture. Where you see tippy tops to wet sand here you see flatty flats to dry flat over there. I don’t think many people would vouch for the humble Southern Indiana environment. People don’t stay for the view, unless it’s the stunning sunsets caught on your way out of the Walmart parking lot, where the old couple uses the shopping cart as a walker and teenagers sit in the back of their cars with Sonic drinks in their hand. People stay for the homegrown values, families, and the history stored in these state lines.

I took a film photography class Junior year of high school. That year wasn’t the best for me; I broke up with my first love (for what would be one of many), and I was extremely depressed (didn’t know it at the time). Cheesy as it sounds, though, film photography was one of my serotonin boosters. I would spend hours in the darkroom trying to develop the perfect print and go out on the town for pictures of architecture and nature. For our final assignment, we were tasked to pick a song and describe it with pictures. While I bounced between indie songs from 2018 and my deep love for Björk, I landed on a totally different vibe: Karen Dalton’s “Are You Leaving For The Country?”

The song lends itself as a simple crooning for the country, leaving the smoke and industrial behind to lead a simple life. I myself lived out in the rural area (forest, to be specific) compared to the more urban neighborhoods and suburbia we had as Indiana’s third biggest city. I attached my love for the country to this song and headed on out to the rural Northside to take photos.

The country itself is not hard to describe, and I’m not going to praise it as something it isn’t. It’s simply farm fields with or without crops and dried-up plants. There are sections of these fields divided with a bundle of trees. It’s my PCH, though. I have screamed at the fields, danced through the county lines with my Subaru (creatively named Subi), and sat in the environment through humid days with cicada and frog-noised nights. 

There’s not many photos you can take, but it truly is hard to capture the Midwest charm of it all, in the context of “I-have-lived-here-this-is-my-home-she-is-everything-in-every-way-do-you-hear-me?” I remember driving on a country road and encountering a group of birds flying all around, a swarm of blackness and feathers. I stopped, clicked the button on my manual film camera, and just watched. There was tall dry grass wailing in the wind and some train tracks that looked worn from the chatter of trains as well.

Even writing about it now, it’s emotional. It was therapy before therapy happened for me. An outlet for my angst and cries and throw up of words that no one else but the land has heard. And I know that everyone has a place like this to them, maybe a National Park or a pond that they grew up by. But this is different. I feel it in my bones. It is, I swear. Because who wants to choose the county lines and state roads? I know it is manic-pixie-dream-indie-movie-girl for me to say this, but I know that it holds something the mountains and the sea can’t. It’s not something you can describe, but you can sense it; you can hear it in the frog croons at night. This is my home.

Song: Are You Leaving For The Country? by Karen Dalton

My hike last summer didn’t go as planned. Here’s the quick rundown: an unplanned rain event left me drenched, making me an excellent target for the feral Midwestern mosquitoes. I struggled to remain lucid during the hike after my recent COVID recovery. I quickly abandoned the grapes I brought with me once I discovered they’d soured. When I finally arrived at the waterfall, the namesake of the trail, I was painfully underwhelmed by how meager it was.

Dejected, I made the 5 mile trek back to my apartment. I figured I might as well get my mind off things and spin Adrianne Lenker’s songs on the way back. I just couldn’t bear being alone in that forest with only my thoughts; the truth is, I had spent most of that summer desperately missing the girl I’ve been liking in secret. In missing her, I started hallucinating her into existence. I’d imagine her speaking to me or her body heat radiating into my own skin, only to become horribly miserable when I’d remember she wasn’t actually there with me. The summertime limerence clung onto me with a fixed persistence, and I wanted to shake myself free from it.

I had hoped songs would keep me sane in the suffocating immensity of that Illinois forest, and I was mostly right. Adrianne Lenker’s soft-spoken tunes made for a peaceful soundtrack to the dense canopy around me. The oak trees and cicadas, sun-kissed and dappled with rain that had previously terrorized me, now donned a new warmth. Adrianne Lenker has that effect, exuding a kind of familiar warmth you’d find in the soft grip of a mother’s careful hand.

For most of songs’ duration, the majesty of that forest slowly began to reveal itself, and I quietly celebrated my first rare success of the morning. But then “my angel” played. Something about its finality rekindled my thoughts of her with a passionate intensity, and all of my wishful thinking began pouring back in. I began wondering if the waterfall would’ve looked more beautiful, if she’d find the mosquito bites on my face adorable, or if the grapes would’ve tasted sweeter if she was there with me.

I spent the rest of that day roaming around downtown Chicago, but “my angel” still hummed in my mind. The forest, that song, the thoughts of her refused to leave me. And in that moment, I could’ve sworn I heard a whisper in my ear. My angel.

Song: My Angel by Adrienne Lenker

Like many people, Laguna Beach is my favorite place in the world. Unlike many, I also call it home. 

Laguna Beach is famous for its crystalline waters, golden cliffs, and sprawling canyon. I know this because every summer, Laguna’s entire stretch of PCH is lined with bumper-to-bumper traffic, spelling out the arrival of a parade of tourists flocking to my hometown for its natural beauty. Tourists’ relationship with Laguna is likely colored by warm sunshine, cool blue waters, and rosy sunburns. They fill our streets and grocery store parking lots early in the morning, making their collective exodus around 8 pm after one of Laguna’s picturesque sunsets.

But Laguna has a life outside of what most people have seen. At night, when the beaches empty and restaurants close, I cherish my unique view of Laguna, comprised of tiny dots of warm light from my neighbors’ homes illuminating the city. During the winter, when the sky fills with clouds and the ocean turns a melancholic gray, I look forward to coming home from college to take rainy drives along a barren PCH to my favorite coffee shop. In high school, my best friend and I would venture out in the early hours of morning to Laguna’s desolate beaches, moonlight rippling across the ocean’s surface and gentle waters lapping against the shore. We would then drive up to Top of the World, a scenic viewing point at the highest peak of the canyon. Listening to birds chirping and leaves rustling in the wind, we would watch the sun rise over the horizon, basking the canyon in golden light. I remember our first witching hour rendezvous vividly, as we drove along the dark highway blasting “On Melancholy Hill” by Gorillaz with the windows down like characters in a cliché coming-of-age movie. These unique moments grounded in the serenity of nature, like secrets whispered between me and my hometown, forged a sentimental bond that cements Laguna Beach as my favorite place on Earth.

Song: On Melancholy Hill by Gorillaz

As the years pass, I’ve grown increasingly grateful for one constant in my life: a town tucked away in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains that I’ve returned to every year since birth. Mammoth Lakes holds a special place in my heart — it’s where I first learned to ride a bike, where a bear once broke into our car to steal my Fourth of July parade candy, and where my childhood dog’s ashes now rest.

As a California native, Mammoth has given me something rare: the chance to experience all four seasons in a state where that’s anything but common. Each season transforms the landscape in its own unique way, summer looks and feels nothing like spring or fall. Whether I’m soaking in hidden hot springs, wandering along winding mountain trails, building snowmen beneath a flurry of snow, or paddling across crystal-clear alpine lakes, Mammoth is always changing, yet always familiar.

Last summer, I returned to Mammoth with two childhood friends, the same ones I grew up visiting with year after year. But this time, things felt different. For the first time, we had the freedom to explore on our own terms. We must’ve played “Summer Song” by Remy Bond a hundred times, and it became the theme song for our trip. 

“We ain’t got no place to go, nothing ahead but the open road.”

Everywhere we turned, nostalgia lingered, the trails, the trees, the lakes all quietly echoing with memories of our younger selves. Thank you, Mammoth — for the memories you keep, the peace you offer, and the way you always ground me. No matter how much life shifts, I know I’ll always find my way back.

Song: Summer Song by Remy Bond

My family rarely travels, but when we do, we find ourselves in Big Sur. It is a place where my younger brother spins himself out of imagination under white stars, and the red under my eyelids glows hotter and thinner with the insistent sunrays. 

Our cabin last summer was walled in by the gray mountainside across from it. During the bluer hours of the morning, I’d step out and sit in the shadows the cliffs were constantly creating, wishing for a sense of permanence to keep me there. Occasionally, I’d instinctively jump at the sound of a crunched leaf or cracked branch like scared prey, but in a habitat so idyllic, I’d be quickly pulled out of fear. 

I know a place is magical when my Internet signal increasingly breaks down as we near it. Sometimes, I’ll find myself on campus in an unholy space, and the exception to this rule (Boelter Hall), where the WiFi never works and I am left with nothing to listen to except my downloaded Spotify playlists. As most of these are remnants from Big Sur trips, I stay close to my summers through my music, even in the most unfortunate hallways and underground offices. 

Song: Live In Dreams by Wild Nothing

My parents keep pictures in multiple My Passport devices, strewn around the house (“It’s for safety! We’ll never lose pictures this way”). According to these albums, my parents road-tripped from Louisiana to California before I was even born — drives down the PCH, sunsets from the beaches we now frequent, and a picture of the same frat-house intersection where my night-out quesadilla now resides. 

The landscape of my hometown encompassed a couple gas stations, Target, and backroads with cows and grain fields. Not to be silly, but the first time I stood on the balcony of our new house and saw both the mountains and the ocean all at once, I almost cried. Not because my connection to Mother Nature is oh, so intense — I’m allergic to grass, I love creature comforts, and as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to fear many bugs — but because the world seemed so lovely, especially in the place we could now call home. 

My parents have given me a beautiful life, one that their 20-something selves had once documented in the same camera I now tote around. Every coastline, hike, and cliff reminds me of that. It’s a house I’m away from most of the time, but it’s grounding and makes me feel incredibly small and grateful for the life my parents have created for themselves. 

Every time I make the drive home for a weekend, I’ll sit out by the balcony and listen to the music that’s always faintly playing in our house: watching the sunrise then set, pinpointing the lights of Catalina Island in the dip between the mountains, and searching for all the constellations only my parents seem to know so well. 

Song: 彩雲追月 by 任光

As a born-and-raised Angeleno, I’m familiar with most of the typical West LA haunts that pop up on every must-see list. Temescal Canyon Park, a favorite for hikers, is always on my mind — but not for taking selfies with Erewhon smoothies.

Temescal was a place for me and my family to get out of the concrete jungle and spend some quality time together. We’d spend Sizdeh Bedar, the thirteenth day after the Persian new year, where one spends time in nature, picnicking and soaking up the sun amidst the endless trees. My elementary school self used to jump from bush to bush, pretending I was Katniss Everdeen training for the Hunger Games. Hiking up the mountain and catching a sliver of the ocean between cacti and boulders, punctuated by a whiff of the musky air, dazzled my eyes.

One of the last few times my family visited Temescal was the day before my high school’s freshman year orientation. On the way back, my dad flipped through radio stations until I stopped him after hearing “99 Luftballons” by the German singer Nena. I had just gotten familiar with the song a few weeks prior, so it felt like fate to hear it spontaneously on the radio. Driving through the Palisades and crossing into Santa Monica shook me back to the real world with all its cars, metal, and problems. 

Fast forward to January 2025. Just weeks after the horrific fires that struck the city, I came across an L.A. Times article detailing hiking trails that burned down. I audibly gasped when I read that my beloved Temescal Canyon Trail was gone. I could barely remember the last time that I had visited, but my stomach sank, weighed by the fond childhood memories that I could now never recreate. 

I’m not quite sure how long it takes a forest to grow back, or charred remains to be cleared, but I hope I get to see the restless children of Los Angeles roam around the canyons just like I did.

Song: 99 Luftballoons by Nena