By choosing to live in an urban area, I am disconnected from nature. Often achingly so. While I can step outside into my yard and enjoy the benefit of grass, trees, flowers, the calls and songs of birds, and a view of the sky overhead, it’s only a stop-gap connection. I can still see, hear, and smell civilization. So, I must actively seek opportunities to get into a deeper natural place, and if I don’t have time to travel far, it can be a Soviet era-style selection for suitable local areas.

While I make the effort to get out, I know not everyone has an interest. And, some people are not just disconnected—they never had a connection to start. This was demonstrated once when I met up with a buddy for a little day hike. The particular urban oasis we chose was a forty-five minute drive. My buddy had apparently invited along a friend and the friend’s pre-teen daughter. The more the merrier, so it’s said. But it didn’t turn out to be very merry. The friend showed up wearing jeans on a hot day, carrying a big purse on her shoulder with intent to take it with her on the trail.

But children can be just as disconnected as adults. We’d hardly sallied forth before the young girl began dragging her feet and then altogether stopping, saying she didn’t feel well and looking about as miserable as a preteen can look when forced to do something in which they have no interest. The mother convinced her repeatedly to keep going but at a certain point, said she’d have to take her back to the car. (Unfortunately, they’d carpooled with my friend). We weren’t that far in, and I knew somewhere ahead the trail looped back so that they could reach the start point with relative ease. A couple of times I said I was pretty sure we were close, but it had been a while since I’d been to that particular park. The woman, who I had only just met, snapped at me, “Well don’t get us lost!”

I didn’t snap back that I hadn’t signed up to be a trail guide because I could hear the panic in her voice. I also didn’t point out that it’s hard to get lost in the woods when in certain spots you could hear—and see—the traffic from the road as well as homes dotting the way, visible through the trees. It’s not anywhere close to being desolate, but to this woman, we may as well have gone past the point of no return. It made me think about the handshake deal we in urban landscapes make, where we give up some degree of independence and form an interdependence for our survival. We also give up a feeling of comfort in what is our natural world. When an urban oasis is considered daunting, I would hate to see what would happen if society ever collapsed. People do adapt. Or, they don’t.

I’ll be talking, along with my writing partner, Sandra R. Campbell, about another form of survival: collaborative writing! We are presenting a workshop at Mid-Atlantic Fiction Writers Institute on Saturday, August 8^th. If interested, here are the details:

Website: www.mafwi.org

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