Why are the woods so far away?  
I have to drive for hours to get out to the middle of nowhere,
Where nothing is
To be in the middle of everything that makes me feel alive.

I struggle explaining the extreme exhilaration I experience
Of my first few steps into the wilderness,
Untouched by technology,
To the very generation of technology.

It’s as if all the wires that tied me down are released
The second I take a deep inhale of the smell.
The smell of thriving Nature—
The trees
The grass
The tiny streams
The moss
The animals
EVERYTHING.
It all strips away the cords and the stress.
I can breathe freely once again.

Hiking and backpacking
Are the two things that keep me sane
In this fast-paced world.
I constantly feel as if I’m being ****** forward
At a pace that continually picks up speed
And there is
Nothing
I can do to slow it down.
It’s terrifying.

That’s where my Nature comes in
As soon as I’m in the woods,
The clouds fogging-up my brain disappear
And I am free.

It must be the consistency that calms me.
For the world is ever changing
And barreling into the unknown,
While Nature
Is a beautiful, relaxing cycle.

The trees are my pillars,
But there are no walls to hold me back.
The sky of wondrous colors
The trails of dirt beneath my feet
The insanity of tree roots
Delving in and out of my ground,
Searching for water.

Water.
Water that falls from the sky,
To the mountains
To thousands of trickles
That run together to form my rivers
Which are powerful and repetitive
And repetitive
And repetitive enough to shape mountains.

That always amazes me.
Because when you drink from that bottle of water you’re holding,
You don’t think about how powerful it is—
Powerful enough to transform
A mound of rocks and dirt
Into a breathtakingly, beautiful waterfall.

Waterfalls are one of my two favorite wonders.
The other is stars.
Not the stars YOU see
When you look up at night
And can count both of them,
Poking their heads in
To get a look at the goofy humans.

You don’t realize
That the street lamp you’re standing under
Is contributing to drowning out
All the twinkling stArs.

In the woods,
In my Nature,
When the smell of my hard-earned campfire
Envelops me,
I lean back on a log
And I can see them.

My heart stops. . .

And I wonder
Why street lamps were ever invented.
The stars blanket the sky
With a radiant shimmer
In such mass amounts
That you could play connect the dots
And make the Mona-Lisa.

It’s all there.
My Nature is always there.
Just waiting to remind me
That life goes on.

When a tree dies,
Life goes on.
When the water runs low,
It’s just a slow point, and life will go on.
When a friend moves,
Life goes on.
When life is confusing and depressing,
It’s just a slow point, and life will go on.

My Nature is always there.
My Nature isn’t mine
Because I own it,
It’s mine
Because it’s a reliable friend that keeps me sane in this crazy world.