Sunshine on your shoulders makes you human

Hello you solar powered string lights.

This is a different kind of summer for all of us. And that differentness cuts across most of our social, political, economic, cultural and personal landscapes in one way or another.  However this week, I have also been feeling more aware of how the differentness extends to my physical experience of this sunny summer season.  

I continue to be relatively strict in maintaining social distancing restrictions, so human beings are still very much an arms-length part of my life. While this is a physical reality right now, I am heartened that we humans can still connect together in new ways (I am still trying to nail my smizing technique), and our relationships can also be maintained and even deepened in the socially-pared-down existence that many of us are living.  So in many ways, we have moved from a physical-forward experience of each other to one that is more nuanced or even meta-physical in a way.

In contrast, my experience of nature has moved in the opposite direction. Don't get me wrong: I have always loved a good tree as much as the next person.  And I have been lucky enough throughout the years to have been exposed to some truly sublime moments of beauty in the natural world.  But my relationship with the great outdoors seems to have subtly shifted a bit this summer: from one of ardent appreciation to more of an experiential and physical connection.  In part I think this comes from generally just being much more aware of my body as part of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement (reckoning with both my physical vulnerability to the virus and the power that the whiteness of my skin affords me in society).  And I think this deeper connection to my own physicality has in turn increased my awareness of the connection that physicality has with the physical world around me.  

I have felt this sensation of connection before many times. But the sensation has tended to be momentary. Like when the sun is shining and you are walking outside at the tail end of a long winter, and suddenly your back feels warmed by the sun rather than simply lit by it. For me, this is such a sublime experience of connection and interaction with the physical environment-- literally feeling touched by the sun-- and experiencing the subtle but inevitable march of time happening around me as the season starts to shift yet again.  

To my surprise, this summer, I seem to be feeling this interaction a lot more, and being present to the sensations that are part of the natural world around me:  the breathing of trees as the breeze weaves through branches, the tickle of an ant racing across your foot, the velvety slipperiness of a soft gust of wind over dry skin.  

In short, my experience of the natural world has transformed from a general miasma of nature-ness that I move within and can appreciate-- and has become more of a relational experience of communion, a space and context that I am a part of rather than simply a witness to.  Or perhaps in a metaphorical sense: I feel less like a rock around which the water moves, and more like the water itself.  Whether it is sitting out on my little balcony listening to the birds, or walking along the Ottawa River pathway, or even just driving with the windows open-- I feel less like I am watching the world go by and more like I am part of what is happening in this moment.  And it is lovely.

All of this makes summer this year feel extra luxurious-- and yet also extra fleeting. I hope you find some time this week to stop, take a breath and experience the physicality of your place in the natural world. (Not that we can't experience this in the winter-- but the sun definitely helps...) 

But wait! Perhaps all of this talk of connecting to our bodies and to the natural world feels like a bit much on this sunny Sunday morning?  Then in honor of a the stage production Hamilton coming out on video last weekend, please enjoy this fun clip which contains a brilliant mash up of two of my favouite things: musicals and Weird Al Yankovick

Still too much realness?  Then speaking of mash ups: have you ever wondered what would happen if you combined Star Wars and Smash Mouth's "Allstar'? Me neither, but someone did, and it is pretty watchable. And if this doesn't float your boat, you can also check out Mary Oliver's poem "The Summer Day"

From one forest-bathing person to another, I am glad that we can connect to our place in the natural world together. I hope you enjoyed this dispatch, and have a sensation-filled week!

Until next Sunday,
The Earnest Platypus