I think my love affair with nature started when I was very young. I was born in a small town in West Virginia called Big Chimney. There was a river behind our house, and creeks in various places. Being outside was a fact of life when the weather was nice (and even when it wasn't). Some of my earliest memories are with my older sisters, catching crawdads in a creek or sucking on honesuckle flowers we plucked from vines during an evening walk. In fact, the scent of honeysuckle to this day takes me back to my very youngest days that I remember - it positively transports me to a place I loved.
With 4 kids, my parents couldn't afford lavish vacations. We spent our free time camping, fishing, or at the beach. We were constantly interacting with our natural world - digging worms in the yard for bait, wandering the woods on a camping trip or being dragged around a botanical garden so my photographer-hobbyist mother could take a million pictures.
And even when I moved to my grandmother's house, her little town offered many chances to interact with nature. She kept a huge garden and several fruit trees - we rarely bought fruit or vegetables because we grew it all, and canned or froze everything we couldn't immediately use.
I spent my free time riding my bike out in the country. I was outside every chance I could get.
And now, as an adult, living in the most beautiful place I have ever lived - it's all around me. The Sandia and Manzano mountains still captivate me. I love hiking in the foothills - I delight in the occasional lizard sighting, I marvel at the desert flowers, and inhale air that is so fresh and clean and pure.
There is so much beauty in this world that it makes me want to weep at times. The colors, the sounds, the textures and tastes and sheer aura of it all together is just incredible. If there is a church for an atheist - nature is it for me. It's my church. And I wish I had more time to worship there.
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