A one-size-fits-all prescription for mental health
Is it firefly season?
We were packing up to spend the night at our tent platform, and Yael, 8, was barraging me with questions.
Is it butterfly season?
Is it Mountain Laurel season?
Is it blueberry season?
Is it fuzzy caterpillar season?
I had responded “no” to each one of her queries, bracing myself each time for her disappointment, but finally, I could say, “yes."
“Yes, Yael!,” I said, “I think it is fuzzy caterpillar season.” But she, in turn, scrunched up her nose and let out a sigh.
I understood. I too would choose fireflies over fuzzy caterpillars, if given the option. The caterpillars have a way of being everywhere, hanging from the rafters, dropping from the ceiling, crawling over our picnic table. “It’s raining caterpillars,” I’ve wailed just about every May, since we started leasing the platform in 2016.
But as much as I could share her frustration, I was heartened that she, at such an early age (and a New York City girl for the first 7 1/2 years of her life!), has such a keen sense of the cycles of nature.
Sure, she might not know the precise order, but the fact that she knows that “everything has its season, everything has its time,” gives me a sense of joy and comfort. Being in sync with nature is a powerful antidote to stress, depression, and all the time that we spend plugged in online.
Coincidentally, the month of May has been observed as “Mental Health Awareness Month” since 1949 (!), and it is now acceptable to find Board-certified physicians from Dr. Maya Shetreat (The Dirt Cure) to Dr. Austin Perlmutter (Brainwash) prescribing walks in nature, under the much more opaque term “forest bathing” (taken from the Japanese shinrin-yoku).
I personally never heard this term mentioned in the nearly 10 years I spent in Japan, possibly because you could find me more readily in the back of the kabuki theatre or swimming in the Pacific Ocean—at least when I lived in the coastal city of Tanabe for my first three years there. Whatever the case, I am a proponent of the outdoors for the enormous lift (aka: circadian-balancing properties) it gives me, at all times of the year.
Wanting to be free to be outside, on my own terms, is the number one reason why last July my family and I moved from New York City to Rockland County. It’s not that I couldn’t get enough nature in the city—I walked or cycled in Riverside Park, Central Park or Morningside Park every single day—I mean, I lead weekly walks in those parks as part of my Walk the Talk health coaching practice that I launched just months before the Pandemic.
And yet, even the mere thought of having to stay in our apartment under a state of lockdown—something that thankfully never came to pass—was enough to make me want to live some place where I could open the door and step outside anytime I wanted, without the extra hassle of getting in an elevator or walking down eight flights of stairs. This is a privilege that most suburbanites and countryfolk forget they even have!
For me, like the cycles of nature, city life had its place and time. Maybe that time will come again. But for now, I am reveling in the explosion of greens, pinks, and purples surrounding me; I am feasting my eyes now at the blooming Rhododendron, the fullness of the oak and maple trees, and the buds on the blueberry bushes (dare I predict that it’s going to be a bumper crop?!). I take enormous pleasure in seeing deer, bunnies, coyotes, turkeys, and, yes, bears, play in our yard; and the variety of birds makes me want to reach for The Sibley Guide to Birds, the last book my mom gave my kids before she died.
That it’s paddling and cold-water lake swim season is an added bonus. I have minimal guilt that there’s a fridge and electric lighting on our tent platform, as well as flush toilets (and hot water) just a short walk away. As the 19th-century naturalist and journalist Nessmuk suggested, time spent in nature should be “smooth.” “Don’t rough it,” he admonishes in his classic Woodcraft, "Make it as smooth, as restful and pleasurable as you can.” Nessmuck, I like to think, would be happy to know that I cover the table on our tent platform with the red-and-white checked tablecloth that my mom used, and I think he’d also approve of my blow-up mattress that enables me to wake up feeling rested and pain free.
We’re heading back to our tent platform this Memorial Day weekend. As it turns out, I’m still expecting the fuzzy caterpillars, and I’m also predicting that we’ll see more buds on the Mountain Laurel. Most of all, I hope it will be a “smooth” time in nature for all of us. If there ever was a universal one-size-fits-all prescription for mental health, “smoothing it outside” would be practically perfect.