Closer to Nature?

In case you were wondering ...

Close to nature as a child

As a child I was outside all the time. Although I’ve always been a bookworm, I loved the outdoors, played in the garden, met with the kids from next door to roam our neighbourhood.

We lived at the edge of a small town. A quiet residential street with detached houses and gardens around each one. Meadows bordered on it. There were ditches where we played all afternoon. We watched mice and frogs.

We loved to climb trees. We plucked grass and herbs for the rabbits of my friend, roamed lupin fields and fallow land. We poked in cow pats.

We visited cows and horses in the meadows. One year we befriended a flock of sheep, brought them the finest greens they couldn’t reach, pet them, felt there thick, greasy, warm fleece.

In winter we enjoyed the cold and the snow, tried to build an igloo, made snow angels and fed the birds.

The big garden of my grandparents was my favourite place to be.

I deeply loved my cat which I had since I was five years old.

My family went on holiday to the north of Denmark almost every year in the summer. We spent most of the day outside at the long sandy beaches of the North Sea and loved to go for a swim in the rough breaking of waves. It was always windy, we ate our sandwiches with a good amount of additional sand and salt, and never ever minded. I can still smell the air filled with more than a hint of seaweed and salt, feel the warm fine sand of the dunes between my tows and hear the perpetual waves. It was never really that warm, but I didn't mind. To me it was perfect!

Those three weeks were my favourite weeks of every year. (And these holidays shaped my life, but that’s for another post to tell.)

Nørlev beach, Denmark

We also went to the mountains for hiking a few times, visited the Allgäu in Southern Germany, Carinthia in Austria and the Harz mountains. What we never did was going to the cities or flew to warmer countries for beach or club holidays. We all loved nature. We all had a soft spot for the rougher kind of it. We also loved it quiet.

I enjoyed being outside all year round, it was natural, come sun, come rain, snow or ice. I lived it to the fullest as if there was no tomorrow. Happy days!

My earliest career aspiration (if you can call it that) was to be a farmer. The project week at primary school, which I was allowed to spend on a small farm nearby with some classmates, was the best project week ever! They had all kinds of animals: horses, cows, pigs, geese, chickens … They were also growing grain. I loved it! Rural life appealed to me a lot back then.

When I got older, my aspiration changed. I wanted to be a vet. I was quite determined.

Losing touch with nature

It turned out differently.

The older I got, the less time I spent outside. Secondary school, examinations, my apprenticeship as a bookseller, moving to the big city for university where I studied German language and literature as well as sociology, meeting new people, trying out new things, living in different blocks of flats for more than twenty years, without even a balcony most of the time.

Not an unusual path, of course. But still.

Before I knew it, I went further and further away from nature. My life got more and more bookish, indoorsy - and artifical.

Yes, I still sometimes went for walks in parks, forests, along lakes or on the beach in Denmark, but other than that I experienced nature more and more from a distance.

Moving back to my hometown after twelve years in the big city didn’t change much in that respect.

(Apart from having to buy functional clothes again. Northern Germany is known for wind, rain and endless combinations of the two. It also comes up with a penetrating wet cold in winter. So I adapted to that, but I wasn’t particularly fond of it.)

We carried on living in a block of flats. The last one did have a small balcony at least and I tried half-heartedly to keep some potted plants alive on the concrete to make it look better. Unfortunately, that didn’t go well. Too hot in the summer (You wouldn't have expected that, would you? Neither did I.), too windy, too exposed because we had the top-most balcony. I gave up and used the balcony just for drying our laundry.

I worked a lot, I worked too much. I didn’t even think of nature.

Turning point

With my increasing stress and exhaustion over the years and especially during the pandemic, I began to long for fewer people and less civilisation, more nature, more wilderness, I longed for a quieter place where I could feel and experience the seasons more, slow down, reconnect with nature.

I started reading a lot about alternative ways of living and living closer to nature. (You would have guessed, wouldn’t you? Books as my go-to solution for anything in my life? Instead of just trying it out?)

I especially loved books by people who left everything and the city behind and started somewhere closer to nature in one way or the other. I was especially fond of remote places, a harsh environment, wilderness. And animals.

That increased during my year of recovery from burnout - and survival mode. (Quite fitting, don’t you think? But I only realised it afterwards.)

I also watched lots of nature documentations during that time and I was in awe about the fascinating, beautiful natural world and all its inhabitants again.

Looking for a life rooted in nature

I’m still looking for a life fully rooted in nature, a more genuine life.

I’m not sure yet what it will look like.

But I know it’s time to change from overdomesticated to rewilding as

Sophie S.

puts it. (Read more about it here.)

Last weekend I went to the forest very early in the morning, the sun had just risen and no one else had apart from me.

I breathed the cold, fresh air and listened to the birds. Since nobody was watching, I rustled through piles of leaves, balanced across a tree trunk and collected beautiful leaves in all colours. I even watched a squirrel having breakfast on a tree stump. So cute!

This one hour in the forest made me amazingly happy.

Reconnecting with nature by doing things I loved as a child is not a bad starting point, I suppose.

Small steps and gentle nudges

I’ll start small. Small steps suit me.

I have some ideas about what I’d like to do in the future. Not a list to be ticked off, as I don’t make lists anymore, but as inspiration, as gentle nudges (with some bolder, more adventurous ideas in the mix).

After exactly 24 months, I'm ready for the world again. For excursions. I feel safe again. (Fingers crossed!) It’s sad, so many lost years. But at the same time I’m glad it came back at all.

I am excited to see what I dare to do, what is possible.

Perhaps I’ll even find wild places in the vicinity, however small. It’s all about being open, paying attention.

In the meantime, I still enjoy nature writing a lot, it’s my favourite genre at the moment. I could never experience all this myself, get so close to different animals or travel to all parts of the world. And that’s fine.

However, future posts in the Closer to Nature category will hopefully no longer just report on books, but on some real-life experiences as well. Exciting?

It is for me!

---