I am tired. We’re all tired. I don’t want to turn on the news because I know it will anger me. I haven’t touched Twitter in almost a month. If I do look at CBC’s website, or even glance at CNN, it is only because I’m looking for a specific story I heard about. My wife is a news junkie, and I figure, if anything important happens, she’ll let me know. I just can’t take it anymore.
I suppose that means I am not completely unplugged, but I am not even sure that is a possibility anyway. We live in an epoch where the news of the world will find you, no matter how hard you try to escape it. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do our best to release ourselves from its clutches, if only for a moment, and try to immerse ourselves in something different. Something better. Enter Mother Nature. Mom is always there for us. I duckling that has gone astray will call out to mama duck. A faun lost in the woods will cry out until its mother rescues her. That sense of longing for reassurance eventually dissipates from other species, but not us humans. We are always looking for a sense of security to soothe our anxiety when the world closes in on us. So, I’ve turned to Mother Nature, and am I ever glad I did.
I’ve been going on walks through a wooded park near our home and I cannot even begin to tell you the peace it has brought me. I’ve even found myself talking to the Big Man upstairs lately. Mostly rambling and complaining, but still. But there’s one aspect of nature’s glory that stood out recently in a rather symbolic and timely manner. That is the migration of the Canadian goose. They are not the most appealing sounding creatures, but the organized grace they undertake as they prepare to make way toward their winter homes has caught my attention. They have it ingrained in their makeup to abscond to better conditions when those around them begin to decline. And although that isn’t necessarily an option for me, I still find it somewhat therapeutic as I live vicariously through them. I know better days are in store for these fellow mortals just as the same is true for us. We’ll just have to be a little more patient.
So, don’t give up my fellow non-migrators. There is hope for us as well. We will get through this and find ourselves, once again, in conditions that don’t hate us. Until then, turn off the TV, put down your phone, and go out into our last best hope: The Outdoors. Stalk some birds. Watch the leaves change. Just don’t let the craziness of our world conceal the beauty that never left.
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