This winter so far has felt pretty standard for this end of the province - some freezing weather, a few messy storms, some warmer days in between, and lots and lots of grey. There’s a huge snowstorm covering most of the rest of Nova Scotia this weekend - our roads are bare, but there’s a light crust of snow on the yard.
For just over a year, I have been making a concerted effort to spend more time outside - going for walks, hiking in the woods, going to the beach, gardening - and although I haven’t been tracking it persay, I know that I have spent more time outside than in previous years. I feel better every single time I go outside, whether it’s raining, windy (when is it NOT windy here?), snowing, sunny - whether it’s with my morning tea for ten minutes on the back step or a summer morning marathon session in the garden that lasts until lunch. The fresh air, change of sounds, and the reminder that there is so much more in the world outside the walls of home and work - it’s always a balm. Even if my face is kind of frozen when I come in, like it was yesterday.
I knew this all in my head before, but didn’t actually feel it in an immediate sense until after the kidney donation, which my 2023 kind of revolved around. After coming home, in those first few weird weeks, as soon as I stepped outside, my whole mind and body instantly felt better. Lifted, somehow. Everything felt more do-able. I felt stronger. I went outside every day, did lots of very gentle gardening (more like spending time in the garden with a water bottle and chair close at hand). I’m confident that my recovery wouldn’t have been nearly as smooth if I hadn’t. It gave me exercise, sunlight, a reason for going outside, something outside of myself to focus on, a deep sensory experience, and of course the rewards of the herbs, vegetables and flowers that I grew.
The benefits of gardening have been understood by people for ages, and science backs it up. Horatio’s Garden project in the UK is such a beautiful example of purposefully using gardening as the healing tool that it is. Gardening in Canada is a very different thing than in the UK, but there are examples of therapy gardens here, too. The Gardener’s Question Time podcast and Gardener’s World show (which has been running since 1968!) are two of my favourite gardening inspirations - let me know if you have any Canadian gardening favourites. I joined our local garden club last year, which is a great way to meet people who also understand what it is to love plants, and it’s also a great source of local knowledge.
I can write all of these things with so much enthusiasm, but I still don’t think I can convery how it feels. To work with your hands, to get sweaty and dirty, to learn skills and gain knowledge about the broader world, to steep in the folklore and history of our relationships with certain plants and how they can be and were used, and then to preserve them in my own kitchen, make dishes that millions of people have made before me to nourish my body - it’s an amazing way to connect to everything that is and was and will be.
And then there are the magical encounters that you could not predict or hope for but that can only come your way when outside. The early summer morning I was in the garden and a pair of bald eagles flew low over me toward the lake, chirping quietly to each other. When I went back to the lake last week and a coyote curiously trotted closer to me on the ice. The barred owl that flew across the path when Adam and I were in the woods and stopped to watch us quietly from a birch branch. And of course the sunrises and sunsets that bookend our days. There is so much to connect with and experience out there, and I hope that this encourages you to get out and feel alive. Even in February!
So much love from my garden to yours. <3