Beyond Four Walls

I've always been intrigued by Steve McQueen's quote, "I'd rather be in the middle of nowhere than in any city in the world." It sounds a bit over arching at first, but for me, I think I would have liked hanging out with ol' Steve.

I realized this the other day while inside. As I began to hear the first drops of rain tapping the roof, which quickly turned to a full-on thumping, I thought how much better the sound would be if it and I weren't separated by shingles, rafters and insulation. For there's nothing as pleasing to my ear as rain hitting the side of a tent that's pitched somewhere far from signs, roads, and most of all, people.

Just outside those synthetic walls is a world that I think most of us have forgotten, unless you're watching the one-dimensional version of it on the Discovery Channel. The touch, smell and wildness of that thing called nature is good for the soul. It has an ability to calm and clarify, something of which our cloistered existence often does the opposite. The stirrings, patterns, colors, sounds, roughness and vastness of being outside, somewhere, all serve to wake us up in ways that technological wizardry will never match. Robert Frost knew this when he sat down to pen verses.

While thoughts of places and things like clear Canadian lakes, warm breezes across a Costa Rican beach, or the unending music of the James River tumbling over rocks, bring a happiness to me beyond reruns of Wonder Woman, sometimes it's enough to simply walk out into the front yard. Because out there, away from the hum of computers and the blandness of carpet, is the whistle of birds and the feel of grass. The sound of wind through tree tops will forever trump the sound of air pushed through vents. And the scurrying and alertness of a squirrel, forever working, working, working, is still fun to watch.

Steve Allen, the late comedian, television host and author, once told me that science fiction has nothing on the reality of Earth. That some of the wildest imaginings of writers can't be matched by what we can witness with our own eyes. I can't wait to get outside again and prove him right.