How can I possibly be sitting outside at 7:29 p.m. on a June evening and not be inhaling bugs?

I get that we lack bugs because we lack rain, but the grasses are green, the variegated leaves have opened. The trilliums already turned from white to pink. There are too many tomato plants still sitting in their black boxes waiting to find a spot in the garden. The yellow lady slipper is shriveling. The spring peepers have peeped.

“No,” I shout into the universe, “no, these things can’t already be on their way out! They cannot be done and gone for another year!”

I waited for long, cold months. I paid attention when the hours of light lengthened. I intentionally noticed the ferns uncurl their knotted fists and become six-foot leaves.  I watched the temperatures rise. I noted the first groan of a neighbor’s lawn mower. The grass secretly grows as we sleep.

I planted snapdragons, flowers my grandmother had along her driveway. I still like to snap them. Forget-me-nots, planted by my mom a few years before she died, spring up all around the cabin. Wild strawberries sprout from tiny white flowerets. Morel mushrooms, the best kept secret of the forager. The clucking of a chipmunk, scolds me for being in the way of his trajectory to a shallow bowl of water, left out for the bees.

Maybe it is not my place to wish these experiences of quiet on others. A quiet, if you don’t count the chipping, chattering of birds and animals. The sounds of their scampering through leaves, dragonflies whirring, breezes letting loose dandelion seeds and, listen carefully now, that grass growing!

Yet, I wish this for all people. I get that other’s revel in the sounds in the streets coming up to their 75^th story apartment, the view they must have through the heavy, weather protected glass panes and the night sky blinking with electric lights – all beautiful, I am sure. One of my favorite places is the Plaza Mayor in Old Madrid, full of history, multicultural tourists, souvenir shops, Manchego cheese, and muscatel. I am grateful to have the means, the mobility, and the shear good fortune to immerse myself in the worlds beyond my yard. But, I digress.

The appreciation of the natural world requires immersion. The appreciation of culture, architecture, music, and art also comes from immersion. In my world, the latter is based on the appreciation of the former. Without time spent in wild places, where does the soul gather creativity? How does the human recognize its origin story without some feet in the dirt time? Some nose in the posies time? Or, eyes to the skies? I shudder when I read of the incoming worship of AI, bitcoins, and acres of land set aside to house our cyberworld. Lest we forget we build on a foundation worked over by worms and ants…

Ah, my dad’s preaching finds its voice. I encourage you to walk slowly among the changing flora, watch a bubble bee saving our planet, sit in a lawn chair facing west at dusk, or watch the maple seed helicopter their way to the ground.  Invite someone to join you. Silently soak it up.

How will we respect the earth without role-models? How are CEOs going to incorporate environmentally compatible practices without a core involvement with nature? Unless we actively petition our politicians to fund and protect natural places, the entire planet is at risk. I do not consider myself a fearmonger, but a harbinger. What to do?  Me?

I’m getting ready for Girls’ Camp. There might be a critter in our kayak. Some of Grandpa’s woodpile needs restacking. The shoreline has some slimy weeds and the occasional leech.