I chose an article from the National Geographic site entitled, “Maine’s Coast by Land and Water.” In this article, Krystle Wright kayaks the coast of Maine and explores along the way. The author describes Krystle’s experience; she first cycles on Maine’s rural roads and notices the bright fall foliage. She specifically includes this bright fall foliage as a trademark to the New England area. The author describes Maine as consistently having new ways to explore the outdoors and new parts of Maine to see. After biking on the main land, she then kayaks on the coast of Maine, making sure to include that one of the best parts was seeing and interacting with all of the wildlife. After this, she returns to the campsite that she has set up and sits by the fire. She mentions that the world can be a busy, fast-moving place, so “it was nice to be reminded of the simple things—that it brings a lot of joy just to be outside.” I view beauty as something that can catch your eye enough to make you experience some strong emotion and feel overcome with a sense of joy to have experienced it. The first idea that comes to mind for me would be nature and the outdoors. It is not as much about the physical features of the nature as it is the emotions and feelings that seeing and experiencing these features evoke. This article works nicely to explain the features of my community, Maine, that were particularly striking and beautiful, but also uncover the message that Wright was trying to portray: sometimes we need to stop and remember the simple things that bring us joy.
The presentations I chose were John’s and Taylor F’s. These presentations not only fit well with my personal definition of beauty, but they both caused me to really think about what the interviewee was saying. The interviewee in John’s podcast claimed that beauty was about being outdoors and the experience of being in a place. He discussed how there was an oak tree that changed color and was very beautiful for him; he took time out of his day to appreciate this moment. Taylor’s interviewee discussed the forest being a beautiful place and she learned to take time to listen to the forest and experience it coming to life. Both of these viewpoints were very inspiring and confirmed my definition of beauty.
I like how you are focusing on one aspect of beauty. I think that relating beauty and nature together as something that will stop you and make you experience something throughly is a valid point and agrument to explore. I think the evidence you choose to help with your view on beauty is strong and will help you in your paper. I like how also you said its the feeling and emotions not the nature itself. I think that is a great stance. I also like how you are looking at Maine as your community it will help in your paper with your argument. Overall, I think that you have a good start and evidence to work with in your paper.
I agree with everything Victoria has stated in her comment. I love the idea of relating nature and beauty because many people do not appreciate that. The podcasts you chose I think will definitely help back up what you are stating and make this essay so strong and easy to follow. Like Victoria stated, I think using Maine is a great example. We all get the opportunity to live in such an amazing and beautiful state and using this idea in this essay will help the reader connect with your ideas and actually be able to relate or pull something out of this essay.