Sunshine Is My Best Friend

I think the best way to describe my relationship with nature is that i am a drug addict and nature is my drug.  I cannot get enough nature, if i don't get my fill of sunshine, endless beaches, green forests, and snow capped mountains i don't know what to do with myself.  I consider myself to be fairly confident in my abilities out in the wild, i have backpacked, climbed, hiked, kayaked, canoed, sailed, and ran many miles through nature.  I have spent countless nights under the stars and everyone of those days was perfect, from the good days to the bad, from the sunny skies to the hurricane force winds that i have experienced, each one was perfect.  When i was younger i spent all my time outside, whether it be building a fort, playing a game of tag in the woods or just exploring.  As i got older i found myself to be stressed out when i was inside for too long, when i was outside, everything clicks, from the light to the smell to the feel of everything.

Annie Dillard sums up many of my feelings in one quote about the world around us and how it is a mystery to us.  I agree with her statement with the fact that many if not almost all people are blind to the natural world around us.  "Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle, curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf.  We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what's going on here.  Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise" (Dillard 11).  The only part of that quote that i do not agree with is the fact that we need to describe what is going on, i don't see why we can't just know that there is so much going on without us knowing, i think as long as we are aware of the fact that in the big picture humans mean almost nothing.  It is necessary for us to step back an see that there is so much beauty in nature and that nature is everywhere.  I consider nature to be huge green forests, the beach at Pass-A-Grille, and even the low canopy of trees when i go running around my neighborhood in the morning, to me that is all nature.

In short, some of the best times of my life have been outside experiencing nature from climbing mountains at dawn to sailing in to the sunset.  With so many things wrong with the world, to me, nature is what's right.

-Billy T