Trees can soothe the beast of depression

Fun fact for Arbor Day: 

There are now 99 elms encircling the CSU Oval and lining its walkways.

So reports an April 2022 story on Colorado State University's web site, Literally just 46 facts about CSU's trees. 

Literally, it was interesting stuff. 

Here's a few other items from the CSU list:

When CSU was first founded 1870, it was located on a treeless prairie. 

Some of the [elm] trees are 80 to 90 feet high, and their roots are 1.5 times their height. 

This one is a surprise:

The Heritage Arboretum/Woody Plant Demonstration and Research Area has the largest collection of woody plants in the region, with more than 1,100 different taxa represented. 

The Arboretum is on the south end of campus, within shouting distance of the new stadium. It's surprising because I passed through this site many times during grad school and didn't know it was an arboretum. Time now for a return visit.

The Oval elms are special. During the spring and summer of 1991, as I worked on my M.F.A. in creative writing, I was gobsmacked by severe depression, I found solace among the elms. As noted, they are sturdy and tall, providing shade for the lawn and itinerant students who need some elm goodness to buck up their spirits. I would bike on over to the Oval, prop myself against a tree, read and study. The tree gave me strength. At the time, I thought they were cottonwoods but it didn't really matter. Trees carry energy and silently impart strength to those humans who take the time to appreciate them. I took antidepressants for the first time but it took a long time for them to work. Meanwhile, I had trees. 

I'd dealt with depression before. When I was an undergrad, a break-up caused me to go sleepless for a week. That was the first time I saw a therapist and talked it through. This was 1975 and pre-Prozac. I was 24 and pleased. I faced the beast and came out the better for it. 

During the next couple decades, I muddled through. Married, had a kid, worked various jobs in Denver until I went to school. After I turned 40, family issues took me back to therapy and anti-Ds. I kicked the drugs several times but the result was always the same. Finally, a psychiatrist in Cheyenne issued a mandate: You'll be on these the rest of your life. And, thus far, I have been.

While the meds percolate through my system, I walk among the trees. It's never been a mystery to me that elms and maples have healing qualities. Psychology Today writes about "Forest Bathing in Japan." Full immersion in the forest. PT referenced a 2012 Outside magazine first-person article by Florence Williams, Take Two Hours of Pine Forest and Call Me in the Morning. Here's the subhead:

These days, screen-addicted Americans are more stressed out and distracted than ever. And there’s no app for that. But there is a radically simple remedy: get outside. Florence Williams travels to the deep woods of Japan, where researchers are backing up the theory that nature can lower your blood pressure, fight off depression—and even prevent cancer.

These days, I need assistance when walking. I'm missing out on forest bathing. But last time I was in the mountains, last September, I sat under pines as my family joined friends in a hike on Vedauwoo's Turtle Rock Trail. I'm usually the one leading these and may again if the docs can get to the bottom of my disability. I can park my rollator walker under any tree. And breathe deeply. 

Happy belated Arbor Day.

Help save the University of Wyoming Creative Writing M.F.A. Program

This comes from a Nov. 17 Facebook post by writer and UW prof Nina Swamidoss McConigley of Laramie:

Hey friends -- due to budget cuts, UW has proposed eliminating the wonderful, nationally-ranked creative writing M.F.A. program.

As a current student pointed out, this program is a vital way to provide a diverse set of writers fully-funded opportunities to write from and about an underrepresented place. Graduates from the program have published so many books -- last year, Kali Fajardo-Anstine was a finalist for the National Book Award.

If you care about the arts, communication about rural communities, and opportunities for young writers, it would mean the world to me if you could sign & share this petition to save the program:

https://www.change.org/.../university-of-wyoming-save-the...

You can also email your comments to: progrevw@uwyo.edu

This is a travesty. Many fine writers have been through the University of Wyoming Creative Writing Program. It sponsors many visiting writers and has strengthened state's writing community. Along with Performing Arts and Visual Arts, the program makes UW a destination for creative people all over the country and especially in the Rocky Mountain region. To jettison the program just as its value is being appreciated would be a terrible thing.

The state legislature has wasted years ignoring that hard times were coming for oil and coal, traditionally major sources of revenue. The handwriting was not just on the wall but everywhere you looked. Still, nothing was done and now we are facing the loss of an entity that helps make Wyoming great. Don't let them do this.

Sign the petition at the link above. Send your comments to progrevw@uwyo.edu

I earned my M.F.A. in creative writing at Colorado State University. I then went on to be the literature program manager at the Wyoming Arts Council and spent two years as assistant director of the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Program. The M.F.A. took me in unexpected directions. I was a published writer when I entered the M.F.A. program in 1988. I I had no idea there was such a thing as the Colorado Council on the Arts (now Colorado Creative Industries) that gave fellowships m to individual artists and grants to orgs to put on readings, workshops and festivals.

In grad school, I signed up for the artist roster that funds writers in schools. I had my first assignment to a school on the high prairie when I landed the job at the Wyoming Arts Council. My experience in arts administration was limited to a stint on the CSU Fine Arts Series. I helped bring some incredible writers to campus with a budget provided by student fees and grants to the local arts agency, the state arts council and the National Endowment for the Arts. My first grant to Fort Fund was rejected. Damn -- this is harder than it looks. When I interviewed with the WAC in the summer of 1991, I had no experience in what it took to generate money for arts programs. I was a writer with corporate PR experience and stints as a newspaper reporter. The WAC hired me anyway.

I'll write more about my arts council experience later. Now it's time to save the UW program that will allow its graduates to pursue writing careers and act as springboard to the arts administration world. Other grads teach on every level from K-12 to graduate school. They all are on a mission to present the written and spoken word to the world. A tall task. But we are up to the challenge.

As I was writing this, WyoFile published a piece by Jeffrey Lockwood, a prof who splits his time between creative writing and entomology (arts and sciences). He makes some good points in the essay but it comes back to this: UW can eliminate and outstanding yet small program in the liberal arts and nobody will care. As Lockwood tells it:

Perhaps the creative writing faculty and our students have done ourselves no favors by publishing essays, articles and books that are critical of powerful individuals and structures. However, our task as writers is the pursuit of beauty, truth and right — and this may not align with corporate profits, legislative orthodoxy and status quo ideology. I don’t want to believe that the cut is political retribution, although those in power have demonstrated their willingness to punish troublemakers. Rather, I believe that the university’s course of action is based on the assumption that there will be little or no blowback.

It could make all the difference if you found the time to communicate with the UW Board of Trustees, president and the (acting) dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. Or send your support to an email dedicated to public feedback: progrevw@uwyo.edu

Writers write. What are you waiting for?