Nurtured by Nature
I’ve been feeling a pull to the mountains. You know this. It comes as no surprise.
I’m a city girl but you know I’ve been talking a lot about the mountains lately. And so, I listened. This month I headed out west to explore Yellowstone, Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Hole. I also did a quick drive through Big Sky, Montana. It was surreal and breathtaking. All I wanted to do was bottle up the serenity and share it with you.
The bottling up part didn’t work out so well as you can imagine (they didn’t let me through security with it). Instead, I captured a few snapshots and videos from my days immersed in nature with incredible wildlife, trees, waterfalls and foliage.
It was mid-October so the trees … o’ the trees! You can imagine the shades of gold, apricot, copper, champagne, saffron and scarlet. Some freckled. Some striped. Some transparent. Others opaque. They dotted the vast cerulean Montana and Wyomming skies like bees on honeycomb. Sandwiched between them were the Grand Tetons, a mountain range so majestic and pristine, I nearly had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
Turns out I wasn’t dreaming. But, being in nature sure did bring me back to my childhood.
This trip made me realize how grateful I am for having parents who immersed my sister and I in nature when we were young. In the summer, we’d go camping and crabbing in the sweltering heat of the Jersey shore; in autumn, we’d drive out to old musty log cabins in New Jersey State Parks and play amongst the pine trees and lakes; in winter, we’d ski the snowy slopes in Colorado; and in the spring, we’d often head out to tiny bungalows in the Amish country and swing from the Weeping Willow trees. I remember feeling nurtured by nature when I was a kid. Mostly in autumn when I was stomping around in the woods making forts with my childhood best friend, Maighdlin.
I remember being outdoors all the time. I found joy in our little New Jersey backyard, which was primarily made up of my father’s prized possession, his luscious emerald green grass. He pampered it daily. Sometimes twice a day. His grassy patch in our backyard led to a small area of mud (where my outdoor “kitchen” was set up to make mud pies) followed by a wide strip of cement that led to our driveway. In the warm weather, I’d fling myself out the back door of our home, hop over the cement and prance around in the mud just to end up in my father’s finest grass to play. I loved it. This tiny backyard was “the great outdoors” for me and the neighborhood kids. It’s where my love for getting my hands dirty began. It’s where I pretended to bake mud pies in my little plastic outdoor kitchen. It’s where I had races with the worms my father bought for fishing (and the ones I found while digging my pudgy little hands in the garden). It’s where I bundled myself up in my snowsuit to build snowwomen (and men) with my sister. It’s where I felt free and alive. And after all these years, I’m still happiest when my hands are dirty in the kitchen, on the pottery wheel or immersed in some sort of creative living.
I think it’s pretty obvious I haven’t been anywhere remotely close to nature in the last two decades. If you’ve followed along with my journey since then, you’re well aware of this. New York City, in a way, has been my protection because while unwell and unraveling trauma, even a pinch of letting go, relaxation and pleasure was completely terrifying. I didn’t even dip my toes into the sand on my hometown beach until a few years ago. It was all too overwhelming for me.
Healing is wild. As is the aftermath of it all. But, it’s also been extraordinary to emerge from it and begin to experience the purity that still resides in this country. Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park were absolutely breathtaking. I was about fifty yards away from bison, moose, elk, fox and horses. They’re such incredible creatures. I found myself just standing there with my jaw dropped in between taking photos because of the sheer beauty of it all. I wanted to stay. To hangout with the animals and say hello. They, of course, had other plans.
I’ve shared a few of the snapshots here with you but the majority of photos and videos of the animals, mountains and waterfalls can be seen on this Instagram post and in my Travel Highlights.
Even at a time when the world feels extremely chaotic, stepping onto these untouched lands out west made me feel so deeply appreciative for the vegetation and wildlife that’s available for future generations. In a way it gave me a glimmer of hope that there’s still the potential for each of us to be nurtured by nature even amongst the web of chaos we face in the world each day.
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