As a kid growing up in the 90s in North Carolina, I spent much of my time outside in the yard and walking through the woods along a winding creek. When I was inside, I was writing stories about magical paths through the forest and all the fantastical things one would encounter along the way, illustrating my backyard woods as the setting. Until I left in my late 20s to seek what I felt I was missing (city life, dating, wooo), I never knew how much I took for granted the things that surround my childhood memories; giant oak trees, the sound of birds in the morning, cicadas in the hot afternoon, the surprising comfort of steamy humidity and rainbows after a summer storm, and fresh snow that would remain unbothered. Ironically, it was living in New York that made my soul absolutely sure that I belonged living around nature. Once that clicked, each day in the city felt more and more unnatural and my patience thinned along with my hair (seriously).
In this process of coming back home in my heart, I have been sifting through the settling debris of the many experiences I've had over the years to uncover who I am. What remains the clearest are the foundations that were there all along, one being the gravitational pull towards the outdoors. And now I know that a massive part of that foundation stands firm because of my mom. Watching her as a kid, I learned to notice and love every bit of nature, the way she whole-heartedly loved it all. And I think now I subconsciously see her in all of it. I see her in the gentle deer in my backyard, in the birds making their nests in the spring, in the hummingbirds feeding on pink flowers. She's there when my hands are in fresh soil and it smells so earthy, and when new flowers bloom. It's all interconnected and feels truly like home, more than the inside of my house.
Now that I'm back living in North Carolina, mom and I have bonded on a new level around nature since I now experience similar to the way she always has. The bond is the way we both truly admire trees but also think they're super cute, the way we love and respect all animals and will always save that lost bug in the house, the way we notice how clean the air in a forest smells, the appreciation of kindness in a small mountain town, and the genuine peace felt hearing the orchestra of birds, water, and breeze.
So we have made it a point to appreciate these things more together. Starting with this trip to Maine down to Martha's Vineyard. While we did the whole coast in between, Acadia National Park was our favorite. Even this trip confirmed again for both of us, we are happiest in nature. What's funny is that if you saw all the pictures of us throughout the trip, particularly of mom, she's giddy laughing and smiling around all the trees. The further away we got from the trees down the coast, the smiles slowly dwindled, ending in frowns in the Boston city center, haha. Either place, I wouldn't have wanted to be there with anyone else!
