NEEDED!!: More Time In Nature

Last week began the transfer of my blog to self-hosting and my website to my blog so a marriage could take place between the two. It was time to merge my writing and Turtle Island Adventures and make one website that united it all.

Once the blog was transferred to my hosting company’s servers, I rebuilt the blog website and added in pages from my Turtle Island Adventures site. Over eight hours of merging information, updating, revising, changing the theme. It was a very mental day with my brain working overtime in an area that it really isn’t fond of lingering.

Then came the end of the day and I called my hosting company to ask about backing up my site. The nice guy said, sure but let’s look at your hosting. And then came a barrage of glitches with their hosting. He was trying to fix an issue another guy there had created and he couldn’t resolve it. We spent over…way over…an hour trying to resolve this so I could save money. We never got it worked out so I was left paying twice as much for hosting as I should be because of a mistake another guy at this particular hosting company made that couldn’t be resolved.

But never mind all that….the constant left-brain activity and 90 minutes on the phone dealing with files, codes, IP addresses…I felt fried. I had missed a photo shoot I wanted to do and felt like I needed to stick my head in a bucket of ice water. I was supposed to awaken at 4.30am, do my sea turtle nest patrol, clean up and drive to Atlanta for a gathering and an over-night visit with a friend. After a week out of the country and a four day trip to Michigan over the past two weeks I felt as if I was imploding.So I cleared everything off my weekend schedule except the sea turtle nest patrol and watched an old movie while eating popcorn.

The eastern glow of the rising sun was just warming the night sky as I stepped barefoot onto the beach. As soon as I took my flip-flops off and felt the sand my entire body breathed a sigh of relief. It was in that moment that I realized I had Nature Deficit. The walk was a blissful reminder that I simply cannot be healthy and balanced without a daily connection to nature.

This morning found me sitting in my hammock chair on my back porch watching dawn arrive. My two cat companions were intently listening to songbirds and I was watching clouds move above the massive branches of the live oak tree that lives in the courtyard.

Then another morning of polishing the new web/blog site but I’m grooving. Patience for tedious adjustments has been with me and I remember to glance out the large window and observe the oak trees, sky and squirrels scurrying around brown branches.

It’s my guess that we can all use more time in nature….and less time in front of computer screens.