AN UNPOPULAR OPINION: NATURE BORES ME

By Alice Kuo Shippee

So, I have what will for sure be an unpopular opinion: Nature bores me.

Hear me out.

What I mean is that I don’t like to exercise in nature.

I am super lucky to live near the beach in an area that has lots of hiking trails. People love running & biking these paths that run behind the houses. Rumor is that these are also fire-fighting trails, perhaps breaks, if the brush between rows of homes go up in flames, as it is wont to do in California.

From our house, we often see people walking these dirt trails, often with their dogs. When the kids were small, we would walk them too, but not get very far, because little kids like to squat down & inspect every rock or flower & collect branches every 5-10 feet. So I guess we didn’t really walk them. We stood on them at intervals, like at a museum.

I’m trying my best to get (back?) to an exercise regimen that involves moving my body with the least amount of time in a car. If you know LA, you know that if you want an apple, you probably have to get in your car to get one. I have a real mental block about spending more time in my car to get to & from working out than I actually spend working out. Citizens of SoCal are used to this, but I am always trying to find my way around it. I want to work out on the way to something, or I want to drive less than 5 minutes to the working out.

I could spend zero time getting to my walk if I would just do the trail. Walk out of my house & down a set of stairs, & I’m there.

But omg, trails bore me.

Tree after tree passing on the right, cliffside passing on the left. Vice versa on the way back.

I’m telling you, nature has a sedating effect on me. Mother Nature does soothe with her beauty, but in her prolific profundity, she repeats herself over and over. She does it well. And when I’m there surrounding by repeating mustard, repeating pines, & even repeating poppies, I just want to lay down in a field of them & take a nap.

I do not want to walk my 10K steps.

I definitely do not want to run them.

At the beach, her repeating waves making their repeating sounds lull me to the kind of sleep that you have on a towel, the warm sand beneath you, your eyelids closed & glowing red from inside, the ocean breeze tickling goosebumps on the backs of your arms.

I do not want to walk this stretch of sea.

I definitely do not want to run it.

SoCal recently had an unusual amount of rain. I’d go to bed to the sound of pattering on the roof, & try to wake to the same, hours later. But the white noise I literally play on my phone since the kids were little is that exact sound—a gentle downpour. And yet, this winter I was expected to arise & get my kids to school on time while constantly hearing the sound that I had trained myself to fall asleep to. This makes no sense. Pavlov be damned.

Nature is not for exercising in. While I appreciate the stock photos of many a runner in her Lululemon running a trail into the morning light, backlit and glowing, ponytail flowing, I do not understand how she does it through a landscape that is so relaxing. Maybe that’s why she’s wearing ear buds & listening to her running playlist, which is most definitely not Enya tracks. It’s probably Eminem. Let’s be real: Mother Nature is Enya. And I love me some Enya, but not to exercise to. No one plays Enya at the CrossFit box.

This is not me.

I have walked a lot of nice nature places: Malibu, Orcas Island. But instead of walking, I always just wanted to sit & enjoy being in one place, listening to the birds, looking out over the lake, lying on my back looking at the trees stretch skyward. It always seems weird to be trying to walk as quick as possible to get to the end of the trail, or loop back, or whatever.

Maybe it’s the combo of nature’s sedating effect & my ADHD. I do much better with the background chatter of city life. Like choosing the Cafe Sounds on www.mynoise.net for when I write.

Cities excite me. People and places and graffiti that pull me along the sidewalks, across boulevards, through alleyways. Every single thing I see seems to have a story of past or present. A new city is the best exercise.

I can walk miles in a city, not even realizing or feeling it, not even counting the steps. Twenty-thousand steps in Copenhagen on a rainy day? Easy. Energizing. Passing different shops and cafes, no street repeating itself. Brightly colored dresses in one, posters in another. Bars closed in the morning, open and noisy at night. Old brick warehouses by the water, new bistros by the square.

Averaging 9,000 steps a day in Historic Downtown Savannah, Georgia. Cake walk. Uneven cobblestones? No problem. Every block architecture that makes me wonder, Is this Gotham? Or is this an old cotton factory? Twenty-two town squares of live oaks stretching their arms out over monuments. The Olde Pink House, now a restaurant. A spa, or bar, or candy store on every corner.

Maybe I need to hunt or seek more in nature, look for something new. I don’t know every plant, or insect, or bird in my own neighborhood. Maybe I’m not looking closely enough.

But I think that what I feel in nature is what I’m meant to feel—at peace, present, & quietude. It’s perfect for that.