A Silver Lining

Summary

The author recounts their childhood experience of finding solace and connection with nature amidst family dysfunction and emotional distance.

Abstract

The author, who grew up surrounded by the richness of nature including apple orchards and a dairy farm, shares a personal narrative of how the natural world served as a sanctuary and companion during their formative years. Despite a father who valued intellect over physical labor and a mother who struggled with loneliness, the author found joy in the manual work at a neighboring farm, the thrill of foraging for berries, and the freedom of exploring the outdoors. They describe the sensory experiences of the soil, the aroma of plants, and the changing seasons as a "tropical paradise" within the greenhouses. The author contrasts their familial life, where emotional connections seemed strained and photography was scarce, with the deep bond they formed with nature. This connection eventually evolved into a spiritual practice, allowing the author to heal from childhood wounds and develop a communicative relationship with the natural elements around them. The author acknowledges the profound impact of nature on their personal growth and healing, considering it their "silver lining."

Opinions

The author values the sensory and emotional experiences of nature over intellectual pursuits emphasized by their father.
The author believes in the healing power of nature, which helped them overcome the emotional challenges of their childhood.
The author perceives their family as somewhat detached and unconventional, lacking in typical family interactions and photographs.
The author found self-reliance and a sense of belonging through their immersion in nature, which they equate to a form of Japanese Forest Bathing.

A Silver Lining

Nature Befriended Me

I grew up surrounded by apple orchards and even now I remember the rich aroma of Macintosh Apples — my favorite. There was a dairy farm: the cow cultivated pastures and nooks where they grazed to make green paradises. The cow corn fields and vast acres of vegetable farms stretched in slightly sloping mounds to the horizon. And the reservoir and it’s island transversable across the ice in winter and the deep blue stillness of the water in summer.

While my father worshiped intellect, I loved the pungent aroma of soil in my hands and manual work at the farm next door.

I knew all the places to find berry patches: raspberries, blackberries, elderberries and a few wild strawberries. Some years the birds cleaned out the strawberries and who could blame them — far sweeter than any commercially grown strawberry. My mother would send me and my sister out to gather berries to make her jams and jellies — yum.

While my father worshiped intellect, I loved the pungent aroma of soil in my hands and manual work at the farm next door. It was a tropical paradise inside the long greenhouses while the silent snow fell everywhere outside. We transplanted tomato seedlings into flats and I wheeled enriched humus soil from place to place after school in my part-time job. My eyeglasses fogged on the way in and then on the way out.

We lived about a half a mile from where suburbia stopped and the open fields began. Winter to autumn each year after school and in summer I explored the woods, the streams, ponds, pines and the cedar forests, fishing at the reservoir and felt the balm of Nature soothing my rawness. I didn’t go out during blizzards, heavy rains or at night, but otherwise I was out there. I knew when to come back for dinner — something besides hunger guided me home — some inner GPS.

In summer I went barefoot — when I wasn’t hiking: in the cow corn, on the lawn or in our enormous vegetable garden. The soil felt good on my feet and between my toes.

It wasn’t until I visited my friends’ homes within the suburban part of the town that I realized that my family was weird. My friends’ families had photographs of one another some posed, some horsing around, their parents as a couple, that sort of thing. Other than two chalk renditions of my sister and me that hung embarrassingly in the living room there were no such photographs posed or otherwise of us relating.

My father a WWII veteran who used closet drinking to soothe his PTSD wounds from the war and his distant childhood. This made him an insular man preferring to do his own thing away from the rest of us with the exception of group projects of raking in the fall or painting the house. My mother was lonely and frustrated she turned this into criticism on us kids. My sister loved animals: kittens, cats, Guinea pigs and finally horses. My mother saw this love of horses in my sister and implored my father to buy her a horse — so that my sister got a horse. He had strict rules — care for the horse 365 days a year or the horse would go. She lived and breathed horse. She spent all her free daylight hours with the horse down the street in a sweet pasture near to where the wild strawberries grew. I had Nature, books and writing stories. We were a family of strangers to one another. There were deep wounds there.

I learned self-reliance and was allowed to follow my dreams through the creative venues of the outside much like Japanese Forest Bathing, though unaware of the name I was deeply immersed in the practice.

Our parents loved us and we loved them in that stiff-upper lipped New England kind of way. Despite the alone times and loneliness, I had a few friends and I had the trees, the woods, the forests, the orchards and all of Nature that surrounded our house. In retrospect I feel very grateful for my alone time in Nature with all my tree, plant and field friends.

In my 30s I reconnected with a Spirituality linked with Earth. This enabled me to connect with plants and trees to “see” / “hear” what they had to share. Its not so hard really, it requires us to grow patience to slow down — really slow down to connect and communicate. For me its pictorial and emotional communications and not words. I have been able to translate some of the impressions I’ve received from plants, trees, the birds that weave the air, the streams and brooks and the deep dark woods and forests into words.

I survived and healed the many of the deep wounds of childhood through my relationship with the wild parts of Nature. The healing allowed me to venture into social life with peers and find meaningful service work.

Nature, trees, especially the older calm Redwood Trees, the mountains, streams, rivers, plants and the ocean; we joined in a profound bond of love held by Earth, our home.

This was and is my silver lining.