Close to nature, by Eleanor Smith

I reopened my draft blog post from early last month and realised that I could no longer use it. Not as it was. Not anymore. Such is life. Nothing stands still. When you at last find the time to do something, things may have changed. As a writer and as a person, you must adapt.

I am in a different place now to where I was six weeks ago. A lot has happened. This blog post is still going to be about the role of nature in my life, though from a distance and perhaps with a touch of nostalgia.

Stay with me.

From spending time at home and in the garden to having a busy schedule and travelling to three different countries, my life has, like the weather, gone from one extreme to the other.

Despite all that, the message is clear: make time for being in nature, wherever you are and however busy you are. You will thank yourself for it.

Connecting with nature from home

When I first wrote this blog post, the weather was jumping between sun and snow. I was and I still am in a new stage in my career where I can focus on my own business and my own well-being. Life happens and other things come up to challenge us.

I was spending a lot of time connecting with nature from home. You don’t have to go far to see some nature, though I realise that I am lucky with where I live.

I went about the garden hanging up bird balls. I made little nets for them to hang in or reused old ones. I enjoyed watching the great tits and blue tits come and feed from my living room window. I experienced peaceful contentedness and enjoyed the company of the cat Bagera.

Bagera looking out at the view, by Eleanor Smith

Signs of spring

Do you have a garden? If you do, you’ll know better than me how much work it is.

I started early in the garden this year. I have a lot of ‘garden’: one at the back of the house and another at the front. Both are on a slope and present quite a challenge. Not only have they both been neglected for years, but they are horribly overgrown.

I have a dream of a wild garden that is carefully tended and loved. A wild garden with perennial grasses and flowers. Before any of that can start, I needed to cut back overgrown bushes and stop trees from popping up everywhere. I needed to make space for new plants and flowers to come. And what about some passageways? One thing’s for sure, it won’t happen if I don’t do anything.

But this is not a blog post about my garden project. What it is about is the healing power of nature.

About getting out in nature and feeling happier as a result. Maybe you have felt it too. How have you been connecting with nature lately?

When the mountains call

View from Turnerhytten, by Eleanor Smith

I also made sure to enjoy the winter from the mountains. When the snow covered the long grasses in my garden, there wasn’t much to do there.

I kept up my weekly hikes, dog walked, went skiing, and even started running again. The newest development this winter was to volunteer or be a “hyttevakt” as they call it in Norwegian.

Life at the cabin

Although there’s plenty to do at a cabin, the experience of living in the mountains for a weekend is a deeply peaceful one.

A former colleague introduced me to the concept last summer. I spent a weekend at the cabin, serving coffee and pancakes to visitors and doing daily tasks. I enjoyed it a lot and the experience stayed with me. The mountains are a harsh environment. Ulriken is the highest mountain around Bergen. The weather changes fast and in the winter, the cold and the night can catch you out.

Solidarity in the mountains is an important value for me. The foundation Stiftelsen Turnerhytten run the cabin Turnerhytten. And they need volunteers to keep the cabin open at the weekend all year round.

I learned the routines and I found that being responsible for the cabin is a rewarding feeling. You ensure that others can come and warm up on a cold winter’s day. The cabin is less than two kilometres from the cable car (Ulriken643).

When evening comes, you feel far away from everything up there. Eating your dinner in front of the fireplace in the little living room (“småstuen”). Take a look at some of my pictures from my two winter weekends up there in January and February. Have you visited a mountain cabin this winter? Or do you plan to this summer?

And then life speeds up

I decided to make the most of my new situation to visit friends and family abroad. Many of them I had not seen since before the pandemic, three years ago. It was time.

I enjoyed the trip, though it wasn’t exactly restful or full of downtime in nature. I spent quality time with people I care about in Brussels and Strasbourg and I managed to see a lot of them. For that I am extremely grateful. I was away for ten days and the minute I got back, life sped up another couple of notches.

I went into job training, job applications and interviews. My partner defended his PhD and my parents came to stay for a few weeks. We spent Easter in London at my first ever Star Wars Celebration. That was quite an experience and I won’t forget all the queuing!

Star Wars Celebration 2023, Ahsoka, by Eleanor Smith

Prison work and making my own choices

Back home, I went straight into an intense week of job training at the local high security prison, Bergen Fengsel. I got offered a summer job and while I was it, I applied to the only school in Norway for becoming a prison guard.

That came out of nowhere didn’t it? Not exactly.

Volunteering in rehab makes up a regular chunk of my daily life and I really enjoy it. I have been a volunteer with the Bergen Red Cross and with CRUX Kalfarhuset Oppfølgingssenter for several years. I take people indoor rock climbing and I join weekly hikes and other outings.

Growing my business to a point where I can live from it is going to take some time and, in the meantime, like everyone else, I need to pay my bills. I have high fixed costs with a house and a car and then come all the other regular expenses of life.

Instead of waiting around to land that perfect part-time communication position that I know won’t show up, I decided to turn my passion for helping people into something I can get paid to do.

Prison, Photo by Larry Farr on Unsplash

Yes, it’s a massive change. It’s potentially a whole new career path but you know what, life is now. And I am not the type to expect others to find me jobs or fix my situation. I have to do that myself.

If I could have it my way, I would do a job that helped people make it through the day. And I would write articles and books. I would take photos that inspire people to get out into nature and experience the world. I published my first book this year, that I displayed at the Bergen Art Book Fair last weekend (see my last post). And I have more in the pipeline.

Be who you want to be. Get out into nature to be with yourself in a safe place. It starts inside of you. And it starts now.