I sat perched on a rock shelf, which was surrounded by other rocks and trees and bushes, sheltering me from the wind. I held a mat-board in my lap, to which was taped a piece of watercolor paper. A palette of paints was balanced on a rock beside me, and as I gazed thoughtfully out at the beautiful landscape before me, I began mixing blues and yellows to achieve the exact shade of green that I desired. As I moved my brush across the paper, the color it left there exactly matched the landscape, and I glowed with inner satisfaction. For the first time in my life, I was creating art, and moreover, it was good.

This great moment in my life occurred in late May, when I went camping in Kachemak Bay for five days with a group from school. It was part of an Intensive where we were learning to explore our Connection to Nature through Art and Writing." Intensives are when students get to choose one class to take exclusively for 23 weeks, allowing them to delve "intensely' into a subject (thus the name). We have them three times per year at our school, Polaris K-12.

I chose the Intensive for numerous reasons. One is that I love writing with a passion, and always snatch at an opportunity to improve my skills by working at it for weeks at a time. Another is that, as I liked to put it, "I was born with an artistic defect." Visual art has never come easily to me, unlike writing, math, science, and most other areas of academia, which have. Having avoided art for most of my life, I had finally decided that I was going to look it in the face and really try. I was going to conquer my artistic defect.

The first week of the 3-week Intensive had been spent learning basic watercolor techniques, doing journal writing, and preparing for the trip. During that time, I experienced many frustrations as I strove to master the techniques of watercolor. I understood the concepts immediately, but couldn't seem to put them into practice and achieve a satisfactory effect. I began feeling reminded why I'd avoided art for so long, and very discouraged. I did keep at it, however, and I began, somewhat to my surprise, to find myself improving. I felt genuinely startled when one afternoon I looked down at one of my papers and realized that it wasn't all that bad.

We had an upbeat group of people with a great dynamic, and were all very excited about the camping trip. Monday morning, everyone was in a good mood as we loaded into several cars and prepared for the 5-hour drive to Homer. In the car I was in, there were six of us plus the driver, and although the car was good sized, (a Suburban) we were extremely cozy, and were all more than glad to arrive in Homer.

The ride across the bay was enjoyable, though cold, as we hunched behind my friend Brittany's big olive colored raincoat to protect us from the spray. We were glad to finally arrive at the beach which would be our home for the next five days.

We immediately fell in love with the place, and wanted more than ever to begin exploring its natural beauty. We had to get camp set up, however, and for our tent group, this was something of an ordeal. You see, there were three of us. We were sharing a 10-person tent. It was a royal pain to set up. We were ultimately successful, however, and looked with great satisfaction upon our tent, proudly erected and staked on top of a large root-mass. We didn't discover that last part, however, until that night.

After artistically suspending a tarp from four trees and a stump to cover our tent, we were finally free to explore the beautiful place in which we found ourselves. My friend Kyle and I went off down the shore, hopping over large rocks which were thickly encrusted with barnacles, looking at all the creatures we found, and taking it all in. Although I've lived in Alaska for the entirety of my fourteen years of life, there's always a very special element of discovery when you find yourself in the rich natural beauty of somewhere you've never been before. I went to sleep that night filled with a sense that beauty was all around me, and how amazingly lucky I was to have this opportunity. This feeling was only partially shattered when I woke up the next morning numb.

There are things which exist in the realm of fancy, and which are created by authors for the sake of a tone of mystique or romance. There are things which are too good and clear and perfect for this imperfect world which we inhabit, existing only in the realm of the ideal. Occasionally, these ideal things manage to slip into into the natural world, and to manifest themselves in something tangible. Such was this waterfall.

The gently gurgling creek had increased in size and strength as we had continued toward the base of the ridge, until it had become about five feet across, and the gurgle had increased to a powerful rushing. There was an abrupt and rocky drop of about three or four feet, and it was down this that the water cascaded.

With all its pristine clarity, it fell in a sort of dance. The water played over the rocks, slipping down from one to the next in all its liquid fluidity, as though it were all a game to the water. There was no need to hurry to its destination. It would get there sooner or later. Awed by the sight before me, I leaped over the rocks with as much grace as I could muster, not wishing to spoil the scene. Then, kneeling on a rock directly beneath where the most water fell, I reached into the playful stream, and felt its cold and crystal bite. There was a cleansing sensation when I plunged my hand into the waterfall. It made a case in my mind for baptism, which had always seemed mildly silly to me. Cupping my hands, I caught the crystalline stream, and rinsed my face. It was in many ways, as I knelt there at the waterfall, a personally religious experience, and not one I'll forget.

It was after having this wonderful experience that I went to the perch among the rocks which I described in the opening of this piece, and created the piece of art of which I'm actually proud. The assignment was to paint something which in some way showed growth, and I painted a slender budding tree, set against a backdrop of mountains, glacial lake, and shoreline. It was good, and my pride was great.

In the following days, there were many moments where art and the beauty of nature overwhelmed me. I painted two more pieces that I really liked, one a seascape, and the other a close-up of rocks and seaweed on the beach. I also had many opportunities to slip off by myself and write, which I dearly loved, as it allowed me to really excel and create. More even than just the artistic side of it, however, was the simple exploration of the place, delighting in each new discovery.

There were several very intriguing caves in the area, which Kyle and I were always ready to explore. As soon as the rest of the group discovered a cave we'd found, we'd move on and find another. Each had its own unique tone and flavor, although they all had in common that wonderful appeal which is cavedom. I think there is something primitive in us human beings, which loves to be in a cave. Since the beginning of time, human beings have sought shelter from the elements within the walls of caves, and there's something comforting about being encased within the very Earth. There's also an eerie element of mystery, for caves make us consider what might be lurking in the shadows, and at the same time that they comfort, they can send a little chill.

One cave we had to enter by either crawling in or slipping through a narrow opening in the rocks. Once inside, we couldn't stand and had to stoop or sit, but it was small and cozy and had a very secret feeling. This was the first cave we found. Another was very shallow, almost just an indention in the rock, really, but the beauty of it was that we had to scramble up a rock face to reach it, and perched within, we had a beautiful view of the ocean. It was a perfect place to sit and gaze out and ponder life, or to talk to a friend.

There is one more cave worth mentioning. It was very dark and small, and only relatively small people could get all the way to the back of it. Being one of these, I had the fun of slipping sideways through a narrow crevice, climbing up rocks to find the widest opening, and wondering, at times, if I'd ever make it back out. When I got there, however, it was worth it. No, it didn't open up to a vast cavern. It remained a narrow crack, and I had to remain wedged sideways, but when I shined my flashlight on the walls between which I was stuck, I was fascinated by what I saw. The walls were almost entirely plastered with dead daddy-long-legs, stuck there in a fluid-looking white substance. Nothing was moving. I reached out my hand to touch the substance and realized that it wasn't fluid at all, but a hardened mineral. It had solidified while running down the sides, trapping the daddy-long-legs and forming stalactites from the walls and ceiling. The cave seemed eerie and somehow belonging to another world, and I gently ran my hand over the mineral, and snapped off a small stalactite, less than the size of my pinky finger. Tania, our science teacher who was along on the trip, later told me that she thought the mineral was calcium. Now, when I think of calcium, I no longer think of milk products, bones, and preventing osteoporosis. Now I think of daddy-long-legs', stuck to the walls of a cave.

Tania taught me a lot of science on the trip. At low tide, she and Kyle and I would walk among the rocks, looking at the urchins and anemones and hermit crabs and many other small marine creatures which lived in such abundance. Her wealth of knowledge was a constant source of amazement to me, and just walking along the shore with her, I learned an incredible amount about the creatures of the sea, and gained a whole new appreciation of them. At one point, she put a sea star right in my hand, and it lifted its arm, seeming to be making a feeble attempt to wave. I felt the rough, moist surface of its stomach on my palm, and smelled the salt which saturated the tiny organism. As I watched with wonder, I found myself reflecting, as I had so many times in recent days, on how lucky I was.

The opportunity I was given to experience nature the way I did, expanding myself both artistically and scientifically, is a rare and wonderful thing. Through the years, the intensive program has offered me many such wonderful opportunities, as has the Alaskan wilderness. Often I take for granted just how amazing and wonderful it is, both to be a child of the Last Frontier, and a student at Polaris. And now, to show for that most amazing week, I've got a portfolio of work I'm proud of, a mind filled with the joy and enlightenment of what I've experienced, and an entirely different notion of calcium.