Throwback Thursday: Feeling Free in the Redwoods
Maybe it is a symptom of living in suburbia less than an hour from the megatropolis of New York City – but I find that it takes a while for me to adjust to really letting the magnitude of nature and even of people to find it’s way in.
Now that isn’t to say that I don’t look at things in the natural world and find them beautiful, I absolutely do. It’s more like – there is a shell surrounds my life that needs to get chipped away to get back to being “normal” when I leave this place. There is an unnatural hustle that needs to seep out of my pores so that I can relax. The pace of this area is fast and infectious.
On Thursday mornings I sip my coffee, my dog snores away on the couch next to me and I scroll through iPhoto looking at older pictures for a Throwback Thursday post. I don’t generally have a “plan” I just scroll through the galleries and settle in on whatever photo speaks to me at the time.
This photo of Kenny looking up at the redwoods was taken during our last trip to California in September 2011. When I looked at it this morning, I could absolutely remember the feeling that I had settled in to my happy place. That for the week prior I was free from the tightening vice of scheduling and “have to’s.”
Being away and wandering is when I feel free. Do you know what I mean?
Just missed my opportunity for CA this year. Great shot.
As long as it can take for nature to take effect, to aid in one’s shedding of that steel and asphalt shell, it can take exponentially longer for its effects to wear off, or–if you will–for the concrete jungle’s demands and grueling pace to rub back on.
Is it better to have loved and lost nature (and returned to a megatropolis) than never to have loved nature at all? I don’t know: It can be a powerful tempter, a demanding and unrelenting master, a slowly acting and slowly abating drug.
I would think anyone that rides would totally agree with you. I think part of the fun of riding is the smells that we experience along the way as well. What a wonderful feeling to be in our “happy” place even if we are looking at old pics!!!!!