This writing departs from my usual approach. Typically, I focus on the technical aspects of my professional experiences and the broader implications. I think about changing the world and transforming disadvantaged communities. I consider how impressive my resume looks and what it means for my career—all the potential BIG things. However, in doing so, I realized I was overlooking the ‘small things’ that are just as important. I was missing out on truly experiencing the present and using all my senses to experience this world.
At this rate, I will miss my twenties by constantly planning for the future—a future we all know not what it holds. I will miss living in the ‘planned future’ while preparing for the next one. This cycle of planning keeps many of us from truly living.
The Catalyst Leadership Circle Fellowship at the University of Michigan gave me the opportunity to do “BIG things.” I worked as a consultant for the City of Ann Arbor to find cost-effective heating and cooling systems the city should incentivize to address emissions from buildings. Seventeen percent of emissions in the State of Michigan are accounted for by buildings. Thus, this project will help the city achieve its net zero by 2030 goal.
We also toured more than fifteen sustainability projects led by local governments in the following Michigan cities: Ann Arbor, Ferndale, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Livonia, Rockford, Royal Oak, Sterling Heights, and Traverse City. So yes, cool work and BIG things! More importantly, it made me realize that to change the world, I must start by changing my life. That requires me to engage in ‘small experiences.’ Many instances this summer taught me our environment is bigger than human lives, human experiences, and human ecosystems. We are part of this environment, but modern civilization (capitalism) disillusions us into thinking we are separate from nature. The only wake-up call right now seems to be climate change. Those who are profiting from driving us away from nature are also fighting hard to make us believe that deadly cyclones, severe droughts, and scorching heat waves are all natural and that climate change is a conspiracy theory.
As I just described, these lessons have BIG implications. However, I am trying hard not to get into that. I just want to be a member of our Earth community, not an expert who talks about what everyone else should do. In the spirit of learning for ourselves to change our lives and thus change our world–what can my encounters this summer with the salmon, black walnut, and song sparrow teach us? Ok, today this is directed towards me—what did I learn from salmon, black walnut, and song sparrow?
Learning from Salmon
Traverse City took us on a tour of their ‘Holy Grail’ project to stop invasive fish species from entering a river without entirely blocking native fish. If successful, the barrier, called FishPass, will be the first ever to sort and selectively pass desirable fish, such as lake sturgeon and walleye, into the river while blocking the invasive and parasitic sea lamprey. The advanced science they are using is fascinating, leveraging sea lamprey behavior to stop them from passing through the FishPass infrastructure by sorting fish based on size. They could also leverage the sea lampreys’ reliance on their sense of smell when they migrate. Unlike salmon, they don’t return to the river where they were born to spawn. Instead, they choose a river based on the odor of sea lamprey larvae already in the water.
All this blew me away. Science, in general, is fascinating. This experience was eye-opening, making me think more about salmon. I began asking myself: Is salmon a native fish to Michigan? How is salmon harvested? Who is profiting from the salmon industry? While I still eat salmon, it has opened my eyes to the importance of learning more about what I consume beyond taste and nutrients.
If we ask these kinds of questions about everything we consume, we may be more conscious of our choices. We might avoid wearing so much plastic (polyester) and invest in clean energy if we have the means. We might reconsider our constant consumption of technology gadgets like iPhones, understanding that we are increasing the demand for critical minerals like cobalt, which is often mined in the Congo under inhumane working conditions.
Learning from the Black Walnut
Growing up, I was deeply connected to plants, trees, and flowers. Every single flower, fruit tree, and windbreak at my home in Zimbabwe was planted by my parents, and more than half were planted by me and my siblings (elder sister and twin brother). It was fun and fulfilling to learn how to plant fruit trees like avocados, bananas, apples, peaches, lemons, and mangoes, and to now seasonally harvest fresh fruits from our backyard is truly rewarding. My connection to nurturing plants and trees faded when I was living in a dorm in Ghana where I did my undergraduate studies in Electrical Engineering. There were people employed to take care of the plants on campus while we focused on our studies.
However, in the City of Birmingham, we visited an almost 200-year-old house with a Black Walnut tree native to Michigan. The BIG things: it’s excellent in carbon sequestration and also provides shade, and controls erosion on hillsides and in pastures. From its wood grain to its high-protein fruit, the black walnut is a high-value tree. Importantly, something switched in me. While I may not plant trees and flowers anymore, it is still important for me to learn more about plants and trees in my community that help clean my air and work hard against climate change.
Learning from the Song Sparrow
I have not been a birder before. I have not paid attention to birds. If I have heard them singing, my interest or curiosity has not been piqued. Bittersweet, our last trip was in the City of Kalamazoo. I am really glad the local government chose for us to visit the nature conservancy center where we followed the trails in the forest.
What changed my mindset was leaving behind all my worries and internship pressures, and only focusing on breathing clean and fresh air, walking under the cool shade of very tall trees while recording bird sounds. I used the Merlin Bird ID app developed by scientists at Cornell Lab of Ornithology to help identify birds using recorded sounds based on 800 million sightings submitted by birders around the world. While, as an engineer, I was fascinated by the science behind matching live bird sounds to recorded sounds in the database at Cornell, what amazed me was how I recognized what I had been missing. How have I lived my life ignoring many lives in our ecosystems? In this instance, paying attention to what’s happening in the bird ecosystems and learning what kind of birds are in my area, even if it’s just by listening to the birds’ songs, which are unique and beautiful for the soul. I felt calm.
One of the most common birds that was recorded and identified in Kalamazoo and the ones I recorded on my occasional walks in Ann Arbor was the Song Sparrow. From the app, it’s described as one of the most commonly found sparrows in North America. They are fairly large with a long, rounded tail and coarsely patterned with gray and brown. Song Sparrows are found close to water and have ‘chimp’ calls and melodic songs with chips and trills. Now my walks are more enjoyable and engaging because I can have fun recording birds and seeing which ones the app identifies, and I can take just a few minutes to learn about them.
The idea is not for me to listen to birds on my walks, learn about salmon because I eat salmon, or learn about native plants. However, the idea is for me to know life is bigger than my own life, relationships, and ecosystems. In that, I can live life with more intention, gratitude, presence, and kindness. If I can learn new things, I hope it has inspired you to learn more new things. But especially, to remember while all the big things matter, so do the small things in your life. Cheers to us striving to live life with more intention, gratitude, presence, and kindness!
Nyasha Milanzi is a Catalyst Leadership Circle Fellow studying at Michigan Technological University. Learn more about the CLC Fellowship program through the Graham Sustainability Institute.