Why Is Nature So Stressful?

I was reminded today of a book I read five years ago or so, Last Child in the Woods. I remember little about it other than the premise that children today don't get much outdoor experience, and we should give it to them.

This was one of the prompts that eventually led to us living here.

"Going out to be in nature is so restful, so centering, so clarifying." I read something like this today; I've heard it said elsewhere.

So why, when I go outside, am I angry and stressed?

It bothered me to realize this. I have had walks to the back of the property that left me feeling hopeless and furious. And yet, just thinking about it, I love the property. I like the streams and the slopes. I like the large hardwoods. (Maybe not the pines so much.)

I started to think about other books, other visions. Before we moved, I imagined a life of self-sufficiency, like John Seymour. A life of reasonable financial success, like Joel Salatin. A life with a beautiful balance between rest, serving the community, and personal learning and fulfillment like Scott and Helen Nearing. (Though that one I was willing to be patient for: they had no children and, obviously, didn't homeschool.) A life of nature walks with the boys, like Charlotte Mason. A life of community blessing, like the Celtic Christians; a life where we sat under our own fig tree.

But that isn't what has happened yet. Without even our own eggs, I feel less self-sufficient now than in Boulder. (But it could be coming soon: perhaps soon we'll have our own beef, our own milk. Next spring our own vegetables. It could be.) The reasonable financial success: I hack away at the root of bitterness that keeps trying to take root about this, and tell myself that it will all work out in the end. But who wants a bitter root springing up? Bah!

Our life is balanced in that we are surviving, paying our bills, and occasionally seeing our friends. But it's not a lovely split like the Nearings. Unlike them, I would not currently write a book about our life called The Good Life. (The Refining Life, perhaps.) Nature walks with the boys? We could all learn together, I suppose, but it can be a challenge to identify a tree by its bark alone in the winter, or try to find the leaves 30 feet overhead in summer. We don't do nature walks, let alone nature journals.

Did I mention the fig tree isn't doing very well?

No wonder nature is not restful for me! Just going outside reminds me of all the things we've tried that haven't measured up. The forest reminds me of all the thinning that needs to happen that hasn't yet.

I'm not downhearted about this. This isn't meant to be depressing. It's more a realization: of course I've been tired and discouraged! My dreams of four years ago have not come to pass. But that's freeing, too: what of that vision should be scrapped, and what renewed?

I have hope that nature will one day again be restful and renewing, and that I can go to the woods and feel blessed and not stressed.