Go Breathe Some Fresh Air

Nature is a Great Coping Mechanism

I was messaging with my writing group yesterday trying to figure out what to post with election anxiety hovering over everything. And it was brought up that maybe we should take this moment to feel close to the natural world. Find a space of peace in being outside.

And so this will be a short and sweet post to help center ourselves. But also mainly as a way for me to center myself. To recognize the way the anxiety and fear is manifesting in my body, to acknowledge it, and then to find a even small moments of peace to calm the nerves. And one of the best ways for me to do that is through a walk, one where I’m not plugged into a podcast or a book. Maybe it involves music, but it definitely doesn’t involve “the news.”

In the thread with my writer-buddies, my friend Kristen noted that she has been reading Wendell Berry’s poem “The Peace of Wild Things” to get her through this moment:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Since she mentioned it, I’ve found myself reading it over and over again. Getting choked up each time, but also feeling present and connected to the world around us.

A couple of people in our group also found solace in snuggling and petting their dogs and cats. For me, the fact that I have to take the dog for a walk is the perfect way to get me outside being in nature and being in the presence of my sweet pup. And so hopefully when you’re reading this, I am also out on a walk and you can be encouraged to take one yourself. 

Or is escaping in art (or better yet, escaping in art in nature) more your thing? I’m tempted to break out the watercolors after too long. And I was even more inspired to do so when I saw that Wendy MacNaughton proposed an election night DrawTogether session on Instagram! Maybe that’s where you’ll find me.

With that, I’m going to keep this one short and just say, see you on the other side.

But first, tell me, what are you doing to calm those nerves?