Clouds-Nature Journal Page ink and watercolor 2020 by Julianna Paradisi

I mentioned in previous posts I’ve taken up nature journaling as a new hobby. I enjoy it for many reasons: It promotes spending time in nature, increases meditative observation, and improves my drawing skills.

An unexpected benefit of nature journaling is that close observation of nature has revealed gaps in my knowledge of natural science. For instance, as a child I learned there were different types of clouds. I remember and can identify by sight cumulus, stratus, and lenticular, but after that, they just become pretty things to look at.

In Oregon, we have LOTS of clouds. I decided I want the ability to identify them. There are 10 major types of clouds, not including subtypes. They are identified not only by shape and color; altitude is also a factor. Altitude is difficult to judge unless there’s a mountain or tall building of known height to use as a reference point.

Despite their ubiquity, the more I research, I discover identifying clouds by type is not as easy as I’d expected.

I became discouraged about achieving my goal, until I remembered my science classes, prerequisites for nursing school. Microbiology required I learn to identify and draw various bacteria viewed on slides under a microscope. And what nurse can forget learning to identify the psoas muscle by sight in anatomy? It’s not easy to differentiate the fine borders and connections distinguishing individual muscles from what initially looks like a solid slab of tissue! At the time, both tasks appeared overwhelming, but I learned to see, receiving A’s in these classes. This memory persuades me I have the capacity to learn the different types of clouds, too.

Which brings me to another benefit of nature journaling: learning that I am not too old to learn new things, including about myself.

Perhaps, as we age, it’s not the ability to learn that is lost, so much as it’s the  fear of being wrong that is developed.

Generally speaking, nurses need to be competent, and competency is sometimes confused with being right. A nurse can be highly competent, but still make a mistake. In our worst fears, the mistake involves the safety of a patient. What saves us then is the level of accountability we bring to our practice. Nurses remain number one in the Gallup poll list of most trusted professions, not because we never make mistakes, but because of the overall accountability, characteristic of our profession. Society trusts nurses.

It appears counterintuitive, to be trusted because of how we handle our mistakes. I’m reminded of the saying,

Integrity is doing the right then even when no one is watching.*

 

I mull over these thoughts while drawing outdoors between rain showers, making ink and watercolor sketches of clouds in the rapidly changing Portland sky. Typical of Oregon weather, to the south is blue sky as the sun breaks through. Looking north, more rainclouds gather, ominously. Shortly thereafter, the heavens open, releasing heavy showers of rain. I gather my supplies, and go inside, where I ponder the names of the clouds I’ve just sketched.

And then I realize, they’re clouds, beautiful in their own right, with or without names. I am grateful for the brief moment outside, the morning’s sun break, the beauty of the day. I’ll look up the cloud names later. For now, I’ll make a cup of tea, and enjoy having the opportunity to learn something new without having to worry about being wrong.

* Various attributions, often to C.S. Lewis, but possibly a paraphrase of a Charles Marshall quote in Shattering the Glass Slipper