Expanses

“We have put up major buildings. We’ve put up expanses of concrete. We’ve introduced a completely different vegetation, and in many cases, that’s led to a reduction of biodiversity because a lot of our created habitat is not hospitable to the native species. But the other side of that is that we’ve created new ecological niches and new kinds of habitats,” Heise said.

Tom's out there, somewhere, in the endless expanses of nature. He wanders by day and, as evening approaches, looks for a place where he can set up camp for the night. And so it goes on the next morning. Heaven only knows where he is right at this moment.

Greg and I, both Filipinos, talk at the Lulu Island café this morning of the 20th of August of 2022. I tell him of my visit to the dried mango factory estate owned by my friend's relatives in Cebu, Philippines. There was a big house near the expanses of the dried mango factory. There was a games house. The auntie looked like an affable Chinese Hispanic. My friends and I ate mangoes every day. I tell Greg of my stay in Japan, where I frequently took the trains and subways. He mentions "bullet trains." I tell him that the PRC now has bullet trains. I tell him of Spanish-looking classmates with very long full names in my private school of La Salle Green Hills in Metro Manila. My classmate Julio lived in a big Spanish-style mansion with a garden driveway through the middle front. That look inspired my childhood dream that I told my mother about a "big house on a lot with a highway in the middle on an island." Oh, maybe, it was from James Bond.

Felix admired the vast expanses of wilderness.

People might think of deserts as dry expanses of land that are hostile to life. But the Sonoran Desert, which spans the southwest United States and northwest Mexico, is teeming with plants and animals that thrive in dry conditions.