Have you experienced moments of healing in the natural world in the way Terry Tempest Williams does with the birds and the Great Salt Lake in Refuge? If so, explain.
I've struggled with depression all my life, so the healing or hurting I've received from nature has generally related to that. Oh, I love birds and flowers and all that (the sublime, the picturesque, the beautiful, you name it, I love it all, no matter how wild or manicured), but mainly it's the sun that rules my life. You'd think that Vegas would have kept me cheerful--after all, the sun shines almost all the time--and yet I remember so many gloomy days and nights. How odd, too, that my one perfect day, the one day full of sunshine and love, happened the year I lived in Colorado. You can bet I hold onto that day--fiercely! (...as armor against all the other fucked up days that came after and before.)But there are moments, moments where the world seems to pause, and those contain the most powerful impressions. I remember lying across a chair and footstool (body on footstool, butt on chair, legs hanging over the arms of the chair) before a huge living room window. Drapes stand open, my eyes droop, and I feel like I'm bathing in bliss. I doze and wake and doze. Voices murmur in the next room, water's running somewhere down the hall, cars drive by outside, but it's all so distant. For a few brief moments, I'm lying in a cocoon of warmth and safety. And then someone enters the room or a cloud passes in front of the sun...who knows? The moment ends; darkness creeps in again.
Another moment: I step outside an icy-cold casino (wherein flashing lights camouflage grubby carpets and pathetic desperation) and the heat envelops me, caressing joints aching from eight hours scrubbing toilets and floors, vacuuming, and making beds. I can barely see or hear, the sun's so bright and the clanking cave I've just fled so dark. For the briefest instant, before the crowds, car exhaust, and city noise break through the momentary haze, the heat actually seems to sear away the filth and smoke that have permeated my clothes and hair and skin. Then, of course, the world closes in again as I'm jostled by the crowd and startled from my moment. Only five minutes to catch the next bus.
Sometimes, though, even darkness heals. I'm lonely, always so lonely, but I walk out into the night because it's the only way I can escape the noise and bitterness and judgments. The stars don't judge. Wounded feelings are soothed by a balmy breeze. It's so silent out it seems like God is listening. My heart quiets, my throbbing head begins to clear, I breathe in, I breathe out, the buzzing abandons my ears. I hear the rustling of trees in the wind. A bird chirps. My shoes scuff the sidewalk. My spine crackles as a straighten my back and fill my lungs. And breathe out again. Nighttime embraces.
