Hi there, it’s Hillarie! This is your favorite weekly newsletter about nature and the ideas it inspires. Keep reading for bold ideas and fresh perspectives on a life lived with nature.
A Rewilding Mind
Dear friends,
How are you doing after springing ahead? It sounds like it should be a joyous occasion, but it feels like a cruel joke the older I get. I hope you all take time to rest and recover as we adjust to our annual time travel adventure.
In the past few weeks, I have been reflecting on my transition from life in the city to life in the country. What a journey it has been and the learning curve has been quite steep at times. One of the biggest hurdles has been embracing a way of thinking that prioritizes living in harmony and community with nature. I call this a Rewilding Mind. The mindset has helped me tamp down my chronic depression/anxiety, find balance in a chaotic world, and given me hope for our future.
A Rewilding Mind has helped me learn to appreciate the incremental warmth that comes with longer days bring and find joy in witnessing the earth come to life around me. I am in awe when I see the tiny periwinkle flowers on the Vinca, thick green sprouts from bulbs I planted around the yard, and blankets of moss covering the forest floor. Being immersed in this much nature is humbling, tranquil and deeply restorative.
We bought a house in the country
Last month marked one year since my family moved from the city to our house on over an acre of land out in the country. We bought the house the previous summer, right before the housing market went crazy. Our offer was $10k over asking price, and I wrote the sellers a letter about how much we loved the home. We beat an all-cash offer and got our first home for way less than anything we could buy in the city.
It was thrilling at first, but the reality of owning a home in the country set in real quick. At the time, we were living with my husband’s parents and brother in their large Seattle craftsman home. We liked the arrangement, and, unsure of how long the pandemic remote work would last, we thought we would use the house as a weekend retreat. We assumed that eventually we would be called back to the office and we would decide then what to do with the house.
Weekends in the Country
Each weekend filled our Subaru to the brim with boxes and headed north on I-5 with our toddler. The drive takes under 2 hours, and we used that time to listen to audiobooks, discuss landscaping plans, or sit in silence, wondering what the hell we were doing. I’ve done that drive dozens of times now and it is still one of my favorite drives.
Arriving at our house was super underwhelming. It was peanut-butter colored, and our first landscaping project left the front yard looking like a muddy mess. Entering the house was akin to stepping into a bat cave. In a fit of annoyance, I tore down all of the existing vertical blinds without realizing how expensive new blinds cost to replace. We had no privacy in our main space for months and I tried hard not to let it bother me.
The kitchen wan’t functional, there was rodent poop in the cabinets, and large spiders sent me running from rooms more than I’d like to admit. All the rooms smelled funky, plumbing fixtures kept breaking, and lightbulbs were burning out left and right. It felt like we were living in someone else’s shoddy home and I resented being there.
Hitting a Wall on Country Life
I hit my first wall one weekend in mid fall. The giant maples surrounding our house dropped an unimaginable amount of leaves and I lost it. As we approached the house, my heart sunk. I kept thinking, “What the hell do you do with that many leaves??” I couldn’t wrap my head around how to clean them up or whether I was even supposed to clean them up. I was in over my city-girl head, and I was growing more convinced that buying this house was a terrible decision.
Learning to Rewild
Though my transition to the country was frustrating and painful, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Having the opportunity to reconnect with nature has changed my life. My relationship with nature has given me more hope in a tense time, granted me connection amidst chronic loneliness, and shown me truth in a distorted world.
Over the next few issues, I want to take time to explore the idea of a Rewilding Mind so that more people can experience the benefits of nature.
Whether that is through gardening, bird watching, or simply sitting on a park bench, we need to invest in our relationship with nature. I am grateful you have chosen to join me on this path and I look forward to rewilding along with you.
Stay curious, be kind, and take care,
Hillarie