Needing Nature

This is my sunbleached chair I left out all winter, waiting for me. Waiting for today. It's March 5, sunny and 43 degrees but my patio feels like 55. I sit here, thinking. I sit here wanting to write. Ideas bombard me. My head clears, the sun warms my soul and I breathe. I love this time of year. I hear geese flying overhead (coming back, perhaps?), but other than the distant barking of a dog and a far off airplane, all is quiet and peaceful. No lawnmowers, no kids playing, no sounds of summer. Don't get me wrong. I love the sounds of summer, but I love now, too. I love this moment. The way I feel now confirms what I already know, that I need nature for my well being. I think we all do, but not everyone takes the time to stop and listen. My brief interlude on my patio on a 43 degree day in early March is all I need. I am not able to focus on much else, and it appears that I'm not getting much done. Or am I?

He who returns from a journey is not the same as he who left. - Proverb

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms......... From Henry David Thoreau's Walden describing his time living alone in nature for over 2 years.