Craving
There is a sweet, sickly, nostalgic feeling in my gut urging a reacquaintence with nature. (Perhaps it's a facet of Spring Fever. I was just driving down a relatively windy, tree-lined road to and from a press check in the 'burbs this morning.) The wild of woods, mountains, lakes, simple and quiet structures smattered here and there--or a small town sprung up in deference to its surroundings--I want to experience this again. What am I craving exactly? Pebbles underfoot on a dirt trail; the crisp, unpolluted air in a rural area beside a lake or a sea of farmland; biking to a picnic spot that I've never before explored; the smell of a campfire among still and towering trees; the calls of birds and crickets amid the stark quiet of vastness; the slow and poetic boredom of having nothing to fixate upon but the unending sky and the infinity of grasses and wildflowers covering the ground--the "boredom" that makes sense keen and is the blank backdrop that exposes the movement of the human heart (which is often obscured by the gaudy patterns of urban life).
Romanticism? Maybe. My friend Theresa says I am a city girl. But I still need "nature"--whatever that means.
This summer, I will be moving to the Fenway to live on my own for the first time (no roomies). At least there are clumps of trees there, and some trails away from the screeching roads and impatient car horns. When I look out the window, I will see flowers before I notice the gas station parking lot. Perhaps in the meantime, I will look into a trip to Maine or some such place.
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