Nature

February 11, 2019

Greetings from human nature,

I stood on the edge of the world, looking out into a waterscape that stretched out into to the line that met my imagination.  I soaked in the quiet; the only sound was what I brought, my breathing.  The wind did not reach me here.  The waves, usually chuckling at the sandy shore, are silenced.  They are frozen in place, white sculptures of what they will be later.  Shaped by an artist whose gallery is everywhere.

I felt the thin air teasing frost at my face, felt it reach the damp places on my skin.  I stood there until I felt the cold creep into my muscles, already chilled from the run.  I looked down the shoreline, saw the bluffs fifteen miles to the south, dramatic sentinels.  The world, in that moment, was still and silent, made that way for me by my companion.

Yesterday I ran along the coast of Lake Michigan, even in the middle of it questioning the sensibility.  Snow streamed across the road like wraiths, shaped by low wind, snaking toward me then vanishing around me.  Cold.  Snowflakes danced near me, in orbit like planets around me, perhaps tiny worlds with whole frozen civilizations watching me as they carrom by. 

A murmuration of snow appeared in the dunes next to me, swirling in the wind, funneling up toward the bruised sky, purple and grey marbled with the white wisps of winter.  I stood near the frozen edge of the water and soaked in Nature, felt her hands on me.  I was so still that I could sense the thud of my heart make the tiniest motion in my body.

I had this time because I earned it.  I ran beyond the cold that numbs the muscles until they don’t work, Nature’s way of telling me I should never take her for granted.  I ran until the road ran out, and then until the path ran out, and finally until the earth ran out.

In that quiet quiet, with no distractions, no thoughts of anything but that moment, I realized again that I when I am too far from Nature, when I don’t spend enough time immersed in her, I lose a little of myself. 

I have run this same road in summer, the season I was born for.  I move easier, my body works better in the warmth, and I welcome that, the feel of the sweat on my skin, the sun on my back.  I’ve felt the heat baked in the sand, heard the wind applauding in the birches, watched the green waving over the sand.  I have run through these same woods, across this same beach when Nature was lighter, more colorful, friendlier.  I’ve stood at the water’s edge and watched the incessant exchange of the water and earth.  It’s easy to love Nature when she is so welcoming.

Winter is a different challenge to run in, but more and more I recognize that Nature in the less hospitable seasons is not the enemy. The idea that I could love Nature, what she brings to our lives, and only be a companion in the best of seasons is so narrow minded I have a hard time writing the words.  I have thought of Nature in winter as hostile, dangerous even.  If not malicious, then at best indifferent to me. 

But that is not even close to truth.  She is simply who she is.  She has the world to make possible for everything living, and to think of her as simply something beautiful to look at, does not do justice to what she is for me, or for any of us.  Like any good relationship, it takes understanding and adapting to make it work.  If I leave the house expecting it always to be summer, there is only one of us that suffers.  Nature is patient, but rarely indulgent.

I have always had a connection with her.  We are not simply acquaintances, and every year the relationship grows in its synchronicity.  I respect her, I see her beauty and complexities, and feel her power.  I also know she does not exist simply for me.  And that she is at her best when I am at my best.

I have climbed her mountains, explored the paths that led to waterfalls, to hidden glades.  I have run along rivers, ridden across her deserts, slept in her lush meadows, the feel of grass holding me.  I have had quiet moments to read in the sun, and wild, heart pounding experiences that still make me smile.  It is a rare night that she does not reach through my open window and whisper what waits for me in the world.

And there have been many times when Nature challenged me.  She has scraped off the comfortable and the easy and showed me what she shows all animals in her domain.  She says to me, in the quiet quiet; If you want to live the fullest life, to know the entire breadth of experience, then know that on some days you will be tested to your limits.  And when you pass through that, you will see what you are made of, and made for. 

In all of my life, when I am paying attention, Nature restores me.  If I make the time to surround myself with her, to soak her in, I return to the everyday routines a stronger, more balanced animal.  It is a foolish person who ignores this gift, even in the harshest winter.

I left the iced beach and ran south again, the road held in place by Nature.  The trees were charcoal sketches against the flannel horizon.  Above me the grey swollen clouds looked like they would pour coal on the world. 

The sand dunes were sensual shapes blanketed in snow. The dune grass fringed the mounds of sleeping earth, feathers riffling in the wind.  Sand leaked out from under the snow, hibernating but testing the air to see if it’s time yet.  A jagged line of birds battled the currents above me.  The wind picked up, pressed against my chest to say; you will have to work harder to go home, but the appetite you create will be that much more pleasure to satisfy.

I am made stronger by her, given balance, inspired by her beauty and her myriad intricacies that make her possible.  I don’t know what I give back in this exchange, but I can only hope that the time I spend in Nature’s company helps fulfill whatever destiny she was created for.

Hope this finds you au naturel,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith