I grew up north of Dallas Texas in a suburbia hell known as Plano: a concrete, strip mall jungle devoid of nature and bushes past the contrived and manicured ones. Once I married an Airforce pilot and escaped to Minnesota, Mississippi, Colorado, California after which Illinois, I realized how a lot I wanted nature.
Quick ahead twenty years and on my second marriage, we moved simply south of Huntsville, Alabama to a small valley neighborhood the place the foothills surrounding it sign the start of the Appalachian mountain vary.
Dwelling. My cells sighed in aid.
Quickly after shifting to Alabama, my troubled second marriage ended. And I discovered myself, like so many different People, uninsured. I used to be capable of get my blood stress medication on-line however not the Clonazepam prescription that I’ve at all times used for my anxiousness. When my dad died all of the sudden within the 90’s, my panic assaults started, and since then my anxiousness had been an at all times current pressure in my life.
I turned to the woods.
Each single day, I might go to one of many half a dozen places round me and spend a minimal of twenty minutes amidst the bushes.
It labored.
If solely extra folks knew this, “Take twenty quiet minutes in nature.” Repeat.
On the finish of the twenty minutes, the world has shifted again into place. Some days, I don’t suppose it’s working however after I skip days, I discover.
Ahhh. Nature. I get it. I want it.
The woods might go well with me right here, however I’m not certain in regards to the metropolis. After shifting round to so many locations, I’ve realized that places have definitive flavors, and Huntsville will not be fairly mine. With its omnipresent military navy advanced overtones (it’s residence to Redstone Arsenal, U.S. Military Aviation and Missile command and the U.S. Military Area and Missile Protection Command), it’s understandably not fairly open-minded, accepting and quirky sufficient for me. I imply, sheesh, it doesn’t actually have a first rate vegan restaurant.
And so I look in direction of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They’re simply east of me, and I made a decision a few years in the past to search for land there.
It took me nearly a yr to search out the land and was fairly the solo journey. I used to be at all times alone on these journeys, and navigating the realm was fairly a problem. A number of excessive panic assaults, getting my quick Toyota Camry Hybrid caught on a mud street on the facet of a mountain amidst the bushes, pine needles amassed beneath my tires, getting misplaced and discovering myself on a chilly, windy, icy day on the high of a 4000 foot mountain, every journey, I pushed my consolation degree and requested, ‘please, let me in.’
And most instances, the reply was a powerful ‘No.’ Nevertheless it nonetheless known as me. And I stored going again.
And I discovered it. That day I used to be with my visiting, school going, nature-loving son which was becoming and made me completely satisfied to tug as much as my ten unrestricted acres full with a Lavatory and really feel a powerful, YES. That is it.
And so I purchased it.
Now I’m the proud Land Steward of ten acres on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina simply north of Blue Ridge. I am going as soon as a month to discover and take heed to what I ought to do with the Land.
I’ve put a 12×16 shed (aka cabin) on the Land, and final weekend, my newly discovered boyfriend/Accomplice/love of my life (every thing is falling into place for me recently) and I headed there.
We had been sitting out by the hearth, and it had simply gotten darkish. And each of us noticed this white mild fortunately zoom down the hill in direction of us. I assumed fox or different small critter at first, however it moved rapidly and soundlessly. And it was not a pair of eyes, it was only one regular mild.
We checked out one another and shrugged and went inside.
The place, out the window, going up the 100 foot hill, we proceeded to get a light-weight present of those lights. Nicely, he did. Not me. I noticed yet one more, and that was sufficient for me. I closed my eyes. I noticed him looking the window and he requested a couple of times, ‘what do you suppose these are?’
They aren’t fireflies as they don’t seem to be blinking. However they’re zooming round, flying in all places. This fashion and that. Up and down the hill. Previous the window.
‘Don’t know. Be quiet. I’m going to sleep.’
And I did.
We requested a neighbor the following morning who checked out us as if we had been loopy.
Fairies. Will o’ wisps. Lavatory lights. These ideas had been going by way of my thoughts.
Once I obtained residence, I began researching on-line and located a solution: blue ghost fireflies. They’re solely present in a two week interval within the Smokey Mountain space of the US. They’re a singular kind of firefly with a relentless glow that the males fly a foot above mature forest flooring attracting their mates.
There are excursions organized to see this distinctive stunning sight of a lighted night time forest.
And I missed it.
As a result of I used to be scared.
Now that I do know what they had been, I need to return and see this wonderful sight.
However by the point I’m able to return, I’ll have missed that window this yr.
And I can’t get it out of my head that I missed this as a result of I used to be scared. As a result of my mind didn’t need to entertain the potential of one thing ‘unknown’ that didn’t have an accepted ‘that is what it’s,’ so I shut my eyes.
What number of instances in my life have I shut my eyes and never seen as a result of I didn’t have a definitive ‘that is what it’s?’
Let’s say these lights had been one thing supernatural or otherworldly. Would shutting my eyes make them go away? No.
To embrace and have a look at life eyes large open even when we shouldn’t have a solution. That’s the trick, isn’t it.
Subsequent time.
