The trees are so beautiful. Stunning, I am in awe over the different colors, red, yellow. orange, brown. It makes me euphoric! I had read something, five reasons to be awed in life. Coming in at #4 was nature. I couldn’t believe it. For me it is #1. I’m not going into the other top five. You can google them if you want, they are all worthy of inspiring awe. Yet again, since a young age, nothing gives me the feelings of nature, in its undisturbed natural surroundings.

As a child playing outside and in the woods, loving everything about nature and feeling at home surrounded by the beauty. In the Girl Scouts, spending two weeks at camp, learning and loving everything. Lying on the beach getting tan, (it was the 70’s) I used to imagine no one around and seeing the vast ocean as if discovering it for the first time. Later taking Metro North into the city, I would look across the river (Hudson) at the Palisades and again imagine how it was before civilization came.

Later, in my thirties, driving up to the top of Perkins Drive, (in NY), not hanging out with the tourists and picnic tables, but finding an outcropping of rocks away from all and hanging there, feeling the breeze and feeling awe at the views of the Hudson Valley and on a clear day being able to see NYC in the distance. As an aside, I would go up there with nature loving friends, either Cheryl or Shelly, (friends from high school) and bring a bottle of champagne and hang out and drink it. We would then hike off the beaten path, stay until it started to get dark, the park closes at dusk.

Later, late 30’s and forties, being diagnosed with MS, the hiking and climbing stopped, so did going to the ocean. I started to get my dose of nature by getting into gardening, becoming a Master Gardener in VA and volunteering at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, which is where I am now.