学进去

Being a writer in the 21st century can keep you in front of a screen for so long that it feels like the room is sideways. Being a human with the Internet can mean hours spent on social media, scrolling and posting for so long that your sense of reality actually becomes sideways. Three years ago, I started to search for ways to deal with my anxiety. I had a brilliant idea, one that felt completely foreign to people like me: I’d go outside, to the real outside.

I grew up in the city, not hiking or camping, so I knew nothing about the outdoors. I have three kids with endless energy, so I figured I could solve two questions at once. I would get a breather from my job and the kids would play with insects and realize there is nothing better than nature.

We drove to Great Falls, Virginia, where hundreds of people on any given day spent hours meandering through the hillside and forest. The blue water pulsed, turning white and crashing powerfully hundreds of feet beneath us. The kids held their breath as if they had seen magics. But it’s just nature, just the outside, and that had been there all along. Since then, we’ve been fascinated.

Last summer I felt my home’s walls closing in, so I decided to go camping. I built my first fire. My kids watched my every move, asking every ten minutes to help get more branches and roast meat. About a month, my craving to take a break from the city grew again. We camped two more times before the cold came, each time seeing a bit more of what nature had to offer city folks.