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Wish I could be like Thoreu


There is a place in the White Mountains of New Hampshire that I go to when I meditate. It is a peaceful place surrounded by a serene body of water and grassy mountains. In the fall, the leaves are a burst of orange, red and gold; the air crisp and clean and the water a glassy mirror betraying the chill underneath. In the summer, the sand under my feet is hot but with a coolness underneath, the birds chirp and fly overheard and green is all around. The air is breezy yet warm and the sky is a blinding blue with just a few wispy clouds floating lazily by. In the winter,  there is ice on the water and the mountains are bare and brown with snow topping the peaks. The air is cold and I can see my breath when I breathe. It is the most quiet when it is winter and the most serene. I picture a fire crackling on the small stretch of beach beneath the gray bare trees. I warm myself by the fire as I sit calming my mind. It is a place of comfort and I know nothing can harm me here. I feel my heartbeat instantly slow and my shoulders relax away from my ears when I picture myself here. It is a place I know well. My family vacationed here many times and it holds beautiful, joyful memories. I hear laughter and feel the love of my family when I am here. I am glad I have this place. I know not everyone has somewhere that can never harm them. Being out in nature makes me feel more connected with the universe and the natural order of things. Thoreau had so many things right when he wrote:
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." The phrase, "essential facts of life" is what stands out for me. As I have written before in these pages, this year has brought me closer to what I consider the essential facts of life: love, living without fear, being with family and most importantly not being tied to material things. Nature can teach us so much about how to live peacefully yet deliberately without fear and with more love.  The trees are still standing tall after years and even decades of rain, wind, snow and ice. They shed layers every year and then grow back new life in the spring. They are not deterred by the hardships of mother earth. I am trying to look to nature more to teach me how to live. Simply, yet mindfully. I don't want live a mundane existence: waking up, going to work, eating dinner, watching TV and then going to bed. Rinse, repeat. We close ourselves off to so much when we live this way. We are on autopilot and miss out on the idiosyncrasies that make life interesting. I am trying to get up everyday and be mindful of everything. Even though I live in the city, there is still nature around me. I have to look a little harder but it is there. There are trees and small tufts of grass and gorgeous sunsets and sunrises. When I feel stressed about walking into work, I watch the sun rise over the east river and just breathe for a few moments. I remind myself that I am part of this vast universe just like the trees and the water and the grass. I think of all the times I have been awed by the natural world - the one untouched by human greed and waste.
Too bad this is so hard to do and when you are in a city that is full of noise and pollution and mean, angry people. There is a struggle inside me everyday. How do I live peacefully when my environment is nothing but? I made a list recently of all the things I love and bring me joy and an opposing list of the things that make me anxious and upset. A sampling of each list looks like this;
Things I love: nature, solitude, quiet, coffee, fireplaces, animals, quiet dinners with my husband, family vacations, open mindedness, kindness, the ocean, trees, yoga, wine and laughter. Things that make me anxious: loud noises, big cities, judgement, corporate America, greed, complainers, pollution waste, crowds, narrow-mindedness.
There is a stark contrast between where I currently live (New York City) and what makes me anxious. This proves the theory that environment plays a big role in shaping a person. I am not suited for my environment in any way and in fact it represents many of the things on my anxious list. Finding ways to reconcile the fact that I need to be here for now and the need to have peace in my life is proving to be extremely challenging. Meditation and daily yoga can only take me so far. 

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