Me going to my place and sitting down felt odd. I looked around for a few minutes and observed my surroundings. I see trees five times my size, leaves that have fallen and you can tell they’ve been there for a while, and branches fallen everywhere from so many rainstorms over the past few days. I practice mindfulness a lot, I like to try to be present in my everyday life. As I sat here, focusing on the things around me, it occurred to me nature is still even when I am not. When my brain feels like it’s freezing up, things are falling, and like it’s raining; nature can take all these things and still remain impact. My self-realization from this was, even when my brain tricks me into thinking I’m not in the present moment, I still am. Although I’ve always felt this sort of disconnection with nature, this was some common ground we shared. Maybe we aren’t all so different after all.
I didn’t spend much time outside growing up because I was allergic to everything that is outside including pollen, grass, and hay. I’m able to not have such severe allergic reactions at my age now, so when I go outside now, it’s like something foreign and new to me at times. I was a sick child, so most of the time I was indoors. My parents were afraid for me to go outside because they worried I would get hurt. For example, I never learned how to ride a bike. Although all this nature has always been around me, because of my health history, it’s still something that seems so different.

In my last post, I talked about how I viewed my place outside my window. This is because my place