To do something outside is to be one with nature, all depending on where your mind wanders and where you focus your attention to be. When I am outside I try to appreciate what lays in front of me and the whispers brought from the willows and the wind from the tree. To think that this was all here long before I began to breathe, I wonder how it is so many of us will let our whole lives pass us by without enjoying the simplicity and magic that grows from the Earth and how comforting the silence actually can be. There is no such thing as silence when you begin to enjoy what is present in the rest of the world. The chirp of little hatch-lings calling for their mum, the humorous chatter of squirrels as they forage for something to feed them straight from the ground there is so much life around us if we only begin to follow their sounds. I grew up surrounded by nature on a farm on the outskirts of a little village not a town. There was never a shortage of wildlife or new life making their way along the ground. It never surprises me how a species will do all to survive. Then enters man ready to squish all within his hands. Think of all the ways we have distorted nature to fulfill our needs. We use it to punish, threaten and to take a worthy life all for circumstances we are unable to understand.

My garden is my haven for all little beings who need a safe place to stay. To watch butterflies land on the peony blooms or all the bees buzzing around so they can find what they need to make honey. Living is magical. Life is the blessing but it all depends on our company. When I go outside it is like greeting new opportunities and meeting new lives. There is the potential to meet a being that will take your breath away. Like the great owl we saw that swooped down in front of us, his magical presence was more than enough. To watch him sit in his tree with wide open eyes gave me a new perspective in life, even now I have no idea why. What I saw in one second it took me a whole life time to feel. His presence over top of us just made me stand there in stare. To have it happen during the day when owl prefer to be hidden and not seen told me that it was a blessing, a reckoning, to be more than I have ever been. Nature has a way of putting our struggles into perspective. Like the rose who grew out of concrete it all depends on our strength. Do you see the value in life even on the days that it seems impossible and hard? Look at those who got up in the morning just to compete their daily tasks. Work, school, play there are many a reason to get up and do. At least we are able and there are some who don’t get the chance. Take today for example there was another school shooting. Children jumping out of windows just to save their own lives. Then there were the ones who jumped to the ground from above the 80th floor when the towers began to fall during 9/11. All those lives got up in the morning to do what they always had done just to have fate intervene and took many, all but one. See there always needs to be a survivor to tell their tragic tale. Like a foreshadowing into all of our existence to demand we take care and listen and maybe outstretch a hand.

My fear before self discovery was leaving the house and be the subject of rude stares and ridicule. There is something about a well dressed lady that serves like nails scratching on a black board instead of being more welcoming. I dress to be welcoming and maybe to appear like I have a level head. The idea that I have to hide that part of me in order to be friendly just gets on my nerves. Outside is to peoply with a high chance of aggravation when you find yourself in the wrong company. As in work surround yourself with those you love dearly and life will eventually start feeling good. I am starting to feel this strong urge to go outside and find more people like me but there is still this fear of not being accepted and that is what gets me. Nobody wants to be hated for who they truly are. I think that is why it feels like a stab if somebody unfriends or unfollows. Instead of seeing it as the blessing that their exit represents we let that one persons departure slowly eat at you and fester. What hurts my soul is not the exist from my life. It is the gnarly speech that follows that proves to others they just ain’t right. Of course I am still caught up on the horrors of last year. A friend I thought I could trust who I would know for the rest of our years. When you are witness to a group of friends who are throwing some serious shade and talking a mountain of trash a piece of you dies inside and it is hard to explain why. It feels like the whole time that was spent together was all just a lie. That those who were nice to you in person now use the distance to be something vile inside. To lose hundreds of followers by speaking my truth and living my most authentic life I instantly felt not good enough and all I wanted was to cry. In seconds after reading the words of my so called friends I felt like I was not good enough to live in this life or the next. My whole life I have been defined by my past. The abuse, the lies, the anger all made me become something I never wanted to be. To be honest with my intentions and pure from my heart I am still recovering from the incident, at times to timid to talk.