How nature plays a part in my life (1)

One of the component parts of my life is a reverence for and love of nature. This has been true for as long as I can remember. For me nature is the place where I find solace; the place I turn when the things happening in my life become to much and I need a reality break. It is the also the best friend I turn to when I feel elated because it is a beautiful day and I want to play. Time spent wandering in the woods is how I reward myself for accomplishments. In short nature wraps up the feelings one might get from a best friend, a favorite aunt, and a wise mentor.

These are a few of the places that I have sought solace and respite from the world:

My first hideaway in nature was an old mulberry tree – behind the house where I grew was a closed alley and a drainage creek with was called the creek. The creek was itself a source of delight. Each summer it was bordered by bachelor’s buttons and the cottonwood that stood where tree row met open area would be covered with monarch butterflies during their annual migrations.

Just across the creek there was a grassy slope that led to a sharp drop off. A large branch from an old mulberry tree hung out over the drop off. By scooting along that branch to the trunk of the tree I could sit much higher in the tree than I could have climbed. The tree was just far enough from home to give me a breather from the stressful situations there but close enough to hear my father’s yell and run back before he became too angry. Books have also been a constant in my life and that crook up in the mulberry tree was the scene in which I read a great many books while serenaded by birds and snacked on mulberries in the summer.

While 17 I lived with my half-sister and a tree row with mulberry bushes was once more my sanctuary from a confusing time in my life. This time the tree row bordered the pasture and my seat was a fall log. It was on that log that I built walls around my emotions that would take decades to disassemble.

While living in Norman, Oklahoma, it was Sutton Wilderness where I wandered and pondered and allowed the sun, the breeze, the birds, and the shifting seasons to offer solace and inspiration.

During graduate school in Baton Rouge, I had a choice of places to commune with nature. One of my favorites was Hilltop Arboretum. One of my favorite discoveries there was the beauty berry. When the weather or the mosquitoes made the outside less appealing, I could find a comfortable chair at the Bluebonnet Branch of the East Baton Rouge Parish Library system and look out the floor to ceiling windows at life along the edge of the swamp. Though not entirely safe, Baton Rouge offered the possibilities of long walks along the Mississippi River levees; it was there that I discovered the hypnotic appeal of large bodies of water.

Once I left Baton Rouge, I spent six years in places with far fewer options for wandering alone. Though the first four years I was in Orlando which has reasonable proximity to the Atlantic. For me the ocean was a case of love at first sight. Well technically that would be love at first feel and hear; I couldn’t really see the Atlantic during our first meeting. My view of oceans was forever shaped by the fact that I first made my way on to a beach at about 2 a.m. as tropical storm force winds from Hurricane Irene were reaching shore in Cocoa Beach. It wasn’t the wisest thing I have ever done but the experience of playing in the surf in the darkness, in a party dress no less, as the wind and the crashing waves obscured all other sounds makes the Top 20 list of experiences in my life. In calmer conditions, if I need to sort a big problem out there nothing that works better for me than walking for a very long time along the edge of a large body of water

Just over a year ago, I moved to northwest Indiana and suddenly had at my disposable an abundance of places to wander through relatively natural settings. On top of that there are noticeable seasons to provide an ever changing set of new discoveries. Some of my favorite places here are the Indiana Dunes State Park, Chelberg Farm in the Indiana National Lake Shore area, Fernwood Botanical Gardens near Niles, Michigan, Taltree Arboretum near Valparaiso, Coffee Creek Watershed Preservation Area, and Red Mill County Park in LaPorte County. Three of these are within 10 minutes of my house; one is within 10 minutes of my office and the other two are within 90 minutes.

More about my Indiana haunts in tomorrow’s post.