Blog 8: The Necessity of Being Outdoors

Wednesday, 8:10 pm

I am sitting out here, enjoying the barely-there base of the moon to my right, which disappears off and on into a salmon-pink and baby-blue cloud cover reminiscent of those mixed bags of cotton candy one purchases at a fair.  Even though it is my week off from "official" blogging, and my spring break, I can't stand the thought of taking an actual week off. 

I've just gotten home from AWP, one of the largest publishing conferences in the world, and from a few days with family in New York--both of which (while a bit chaotic) went exceedingly well.  My mind is still reeling, though.

I wonder, in thinking about AWP, whether a person can have "too much of a good thing."  Three entire days (consecutive days!) of nonstop panels, socializing, and readings is quite a bit for a natural-born introvert to take in.  In terms of contact with actual nature, mine was almost nil.  While I did step outside and walk a few blocks to the nearest T stop each morning and evening, I enjoyed much of the marvelous 2-day snowfall from the spectacular panoramic windows on the second floor of the convention center.  At the time, I was very glad to be indoors, enjoying the view form a nice, heated building...but I must admit, to be so sheltered from the weather sometimes gives me a strange feeling of guilt, as though I am the Lady of Shalott up in her tower, watching the goings-on of life below, but never experiencing it for herself.

On my last day in Boston, I did manage to squeeze in a brief walk around Boston Gardens, which did my heart some good.   Lovely and cold as it was out there, I lost myself in my thoughts for a solid minute and "awoke" to find myself at the edge of Boston Commons, near a stoplight.  I had to return to my hotel at this point, but the simple luxury of having a few unplanned moments to myself made me feel alive and free.

In New York, I recovered from all this wonderful turmoil by transforming myself into a blob on my parents' couch, eating Thin Mints and compressing an entire season of The Bachelor into a magnificent two-day viewing spree, courtesy of my mother's DVR. (Judge me if you like, but this is the one trashy show I can't get enough of!  And at any rate, Bachelor Sean made a choice I approve of wholeheartedly.)

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So yet again, following this TV binge, I felt the passing of several days devoid of the natural, physical world.  It felt as though I hadn't been outside in a week (really, I pretty much hadn't, at this point, what with all the overnight bus journeys between Boston and New York and Pittsburgh).  So my time out here in the backyard has awoken something primal in me.  This time feels even more precious than it did before my trip.  I think of the meditations that Marc, a fellow blogger from class, has recommended.  I wonder just how much of that kind of thing I will need to rely on in order to keep my sanity in graduate school, once my official days of nature blogging are over! 

Or will they ever really be over? I have given some thought to continuing the blog after its official expiration date (the day my Nature Writing course is completed).  For one thing, it is the only source of news my parents have about me other than long-distance phone calls and the occasional text message.  They have read my work before, in the form of essayistic drafts and my completed thesis project a few years back, but there is something different in writing a post today and knowing they might read it tomorrow or next week, at their leisure.  There is a kind of community in blogging, a level of knowing that I suspect they have not experienced before with regard to my meditative life and far-away experiences.  It seems a valuable thing, somehow, their ability to see into my world in ways I cannot explain directly to them in conversation. 

Also, I can't bear the thought of not having these backyard moments to myself.  Whatever navelgazing I do out here feels formative somehow, both in the sitting outside with my fingers frozen numb part, and in the actual focused-attention, writing part.  I wonder if any of my fellow bloggers feel the same way, are considering extending the lives of their own blogs as I have thought of doing.

My twenty minutes are almost up, and already I feel more settled than I have in a week.  The backyard gate squeaks on its hinges yet again, and the familiar kitchen light behind me again does nothing to illuminate the letters on my page.  The backyard light occasionally flickers on and off as it is wont to do, and my neighbors all stay very quiet behind windows both darkened and lit.  These things are all beginning to seem like old friends, now. I continue to write in the dark, with frozen hands.I am alone in the world for a moment, just me and the bitter wind.  But I myself am not bitter, but... Awake.  Alive.  In peace, despite my growing list of responsibilities.  To even consider the notion of attacking this massive to-do list later in my week, it felt entirely necessary and appropriate to come out here, gloves and fuzzy-lined boots secured tightly in place, and sit in a green wooden chair doing nothing much. 

It seems strange that this all should feel so natural, so normal to me, now.  As though without my time out here, I couldn't think straight in the moments that punctuate the rest of my life.  I realize that I need these twenty minutes desperately, the way a thirsty man needs the water of an oasis on a desert-hot day.  What does this say about my life? About my connection to the natural world?  Is it strange to feel this way, so attached to these moments out-of-doors, to the discomfort that comes when one is no longer ensconced behind the safe glass panes of the convention center windows? 

Sometimes, when I abandon this world for days in a row, I no longer feel like myself.  To me, this is a curious thing.  How many of us feel this attachment, are in need of the outdoors as a great salve for our fears and worries?  How many of us forget regularly to attune ourselves to it?  And what is the price we pay, when we enact this forgetting?

 Each time we forget, does it take a little longer to recall, and a little longer again the next time?  Until one day, we find we have gone so long without it that we awaken as strangers in our own skins, as foreigners who can never return to the homeland that bore us...