Slipping

In the past when I've felt my sanity slip I've always gone to nature.


I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order. ~John Burroughs

That has always been the way of it for me. Nature is my escape. Someone once said, it's hard to be neurotic when in the company of trees. For me, it's much the same. With every step I take into the forest, with every breath of the clean earthy fresh scent I feel my stress, LITERALLY FEEL my stress and anxiety slip away. I begin to breathe easier, my mind clears, I see things from new perspectives, I can put my thoughts in order or simply put them out of my mind and veg..or meditate if you will.

In CT, there was a period of time when cemetaries were my saving grace. So much peace in a cemetary..so much history..so many people there who lived lives with more strife than I could imagine, their own sets of problems, their own anxieties, their own...*stuff* and they dealt with it, some more gracefully than others sure, but they dealt with it. They had plagues, and depressions, and sicknesses, crops to plow, wars to fight, children to birth in the fields...they did it.. It helped...driving through or walking through those old cemetaries, reading the names and dates, admiring their stones and the artwork so intricately handcarved by people who cared about their craft. Periodically I'd come across a headstone or two in the woods, sometimes abandoned completely, sometimes marked by a flag or a flower and I'd wonder, who took the time to put it there? All these long years after, surely it wasn't some long lost relative, the dates were too long for someone in this cold world to have remembered someone in that long lost period of time? And yet...someone cared enough to leave some sort of sign. Perhaps someone seeking (and maybe finding) some sort of peace? Who knows...

Here in my new world, which I do love, I truely truely do...I still struggle for peace. I can't find nature here...maybe because I don't know where to look for it yet. I tried the beach, but it wasn't the same..looking for parking added more stress in and of itself and then dodging the bikers and skaters on the boardwalk just kind of takes away from any meditation one might find in the surf after one makes their way carefully to waters edge trying not to step on people along the way. Sure, the beach is awsome, and I enjoy it immensely...but not when I need nature to put my senses in order.

Word on the street is that there are places to hike here, I just haven't found them yet, and because it's a vastly different world than the one I'm used to, there's a certain amount of anxiety in going alone as I'm used to. There are dangers here that I've not dealt with before..or I've purposely blocked from my consciousness. I've always regarded people with a certain amount of suspicion when I'm alone, it's common sense for a woman to do so (and some men as well) but it's hard to "let go" when you have to watch your back to see if you're being followed, or keep your eyes peeled to make sure the creepers aren't paying too much interest. I never worried about such things when I hiked with my dog...never had to, he didn't let anyone within 10 feet of me that he didn't personally approve of. Sadly, time has not been kind to him, and his hiking days are over.

Besides people the other set of dangers I'm blissfully unaware of oddly enough have to do with nature itself. She can be unkind if she's not treated properly, and I haven't had the time to research my area and educate myself on the proper treatment of my local elements. I know there are rattlesnakes and venomous spiders here, and I know to keep a respectable distance. It's their house afterall that I want to encroach on...but besides them, what else to I need to consider? The elements to be sure...the sun here can be brutal, the water wicked.

I don't know what I'm getting at except that I haven't found a place yet in which to go to "put my senses in order" and I'm running out of "give a shitness" which is a dangerous place for me to go. As with every place I've lived, I need to explore and find what works..it's not always the same in one place as it was in another. There are no wooded areas here to drive and meditate, so maybe the desert will be it for me. Maybe I'll find a quiet beach somewhat deserted where I can bury myself (figuratively speaking) in the pounding surf. Maybe it will be something totally unexpected an surprising such as a very public place like the zoo or sea world. It's amazing how anonymous one can be in some crowds and yet others will be amazingly anxiety filled. It's a crazy world what can I say? Oddly enough, the closest I've come here thus far is to completely retreat into a fantasy world made by someone else and stuck between the covers of a book. That's not really the best option for me in the long run, because my addictive personality and my ability to completely absorb alternate realities doesn't make for a healthy retreat. I know my limits after all.

This isn't meant to be a depressing post...just merely "thinking out loud" at the possibilities and reminiscing what worked before and opening my eyes to the fact that it's not always the same from one place to the next... I just know I need to find the balance soon, or I'm going to end up the subject of someone else's alternate reality. I don't think that's a good thing.