Yearning for the good life

 "There
are three ingredients in the good life:  learning, earning, and yearning."
-- Christopher Morley

We all yearn for something.  I yearn for a place where life is greener and less frenetic; quieter with no throbbing cars going by, littering the air with heavy metal music; cleaner, with plastic bottles recycled rather than thrown from car windows.  My place would be surrounded by farms and woodlands.  Perhaps the dwellings would circle a vehicle-free center, where children could play safely and people could walk without dodging cars.  It would be a people-friendly place, rather than one where the combustion engine ruled supreme.  Yes, there are already places like this, but not in my area.

Nevertheless, I have always had trees around me, like in the photo above.  Being able to look out on green trees and growing things is good for me.  I think most of us are yearning for something full of wonder and awe and joy.  Maybe that something is nature.

Richard Louv, in his book Last Child in the Woods (p. 285), wrote:

"When my son Matthew was four, he asked me, 'Are God and Mother Nature married, or just good friends?'  Good question."

Mother Nature is welcome at my house any day.

(Reposted from February 7, 2007 on a blog that no longer exists.  My apartment was the sun-lit one in the middle above.)