Another month of the CLM internship flies by, maybe even faster than the first. Just as the lull of a steady routine started to take its hold on me; I went to Chicago for a week. It was reinvigorating to be surrounded by so many inspired land stewards, but most of you know that, you were there; you got to feel it too.
For one reason, or many, a reoccurring theme for me over the last couple weeks has been; sometimes you need to leave to realize what you came for. This has been true for situations as simple as pulling out of the parking lot and immediately remembering that the plant press is still sitting next to the desk. Or it can be as broad as leaving the Eastern Sierra for ten days, only to appreciate it that much more upon return. Since this theme entered my mind it has been apparently applicable to many day to day scenarios, but what really spurred it on is this internship. I am still learning from the conference, merely by being presented with circumstances that spark my memory of one of the many things I learned each day. On this idea, I think back to previous jobs and how I’ve progressed, how skills that seemed so simple and routine then, can be so helpful to know now. I recognize this could be interpreted as an over analysis of short term memory, or something of the like, and maybe it is, but to me it’s a reminder that you get more out of every experience than is initially grasped. Never let yourself be bored or take an event for granted.  If it’s not great in the moment, there will be something memorable and useful about it in the future. I’d like to think this is not an attempt to rectify something more optimistic out of spending two full days last week down on my knees pulling Russian thistle, but rather more of an effort to reverse the theme and appreciate what I am doing, beyond the surface, while I’m doing it. Already the CLM Internship Program is moving me forward, but to think of the benefits I will realize in the future is astounding.

Ironically I am submitting this three days late,

Tyler
BLM – Bishop, CA