I am trying to think of things that would be good, or extremely uncomfortable to enjoy alone.
This week, I leaned more heavily toward good. I decided to get out into nature. I do enjoy hiking, but I rarely go hiking, and never hiking alone. So I did something to change that. I looked at what areas there are in Charlotte to hike, and narrowed it down to Ribbonwalk Nature Reserve.. It was easy to get to, a decent length to hike, and when I looked at pics online, it looked a little creepy, but not overwhelmingly so.
It was an extremely hot day, and I’m not going to go into why I didn’t have water on me, but the canopy of trees kept me sufficiently cool that I wasn’t on the verge of dehydration or heat stroke.
I checked out the trail courses before I went in, which was somewhat helpful, but not quite as helpful as I pretended it was going to be. Apparently, the first trail I went down, wasn’t even a trail, as much as an unofficial path that enough souls had cut through, so as to keep greenery from growing on it.
As I walked, I took pictures, and asked myself, “Why am I out here?” The most satisfying answer I came up with was “To be here and enjoy the fresh air.” And I did. And I also noticed some familiar thoughts coming to me. An ex-girlfriend used to love to go to the beach in the off-season - usually, the first week of December, and I used to love that trip because it was too cold to get in the water. So it was a great time to do nothing but rest and reflect.
When I would actually go outside, and sit by the beach, I would enjoy just observing the waves crash, reflecting on what I was seeing. The consistent thought that hits me in natural environments is that nothing is trying to impress. Everything is just a tiny part of a big ecosystem. It doesn’t have any grandiose purpose. It just shows up, and does it’s work. A wave is not a wave, but a bunch of water droplets moving in the same direction carrying all kinds of things to and fro. A tree doesn’t go anywhere. It blooms where it is “planted”, and just grows. Its leaves purify the air. It feeds on things. Things feed on it. And then it dies. Bugs burrow in the decaying logs Fungi show up to break it down, and it fertilizes the next beautiful thing that will grow. It just does its job. And it’s impressive. I’m not sure what the best tree is. I wouldn’t event think to call one more important than another, or have a metric to decide that. In nature, things just are. Things just do. And they are beautiful. And they are impressive. A lesson.
So I enjoyed my hike. I look forward to doing it more. If I actually go hiking, then I can honestly tell people, I love hiking, and can make plans to go more and be social about it. I haven’t decided what my next artist date is, but I’ll figure it out soon. I do plan to go to Carowinds by myself, and possibly a brewery tour, but I don’t think these will be the next excursions. I’ll just keep you posted.