It's just like this.

Most of us live in landscapes that have been greatly altered by human agency, agricultural, industrial, or urban.

Nature struggles to survive at the edges of a cornfield or in a creek running through the city, but it is still there and just as worthy of our attention and defense.

Good things happen when we go to such places.

It is not hard to find a piece of land degraded but not yet annihilated by human activity.

Walk through a place isolated or damaged by the extractive impulses of our species and if you are quiet enough, attentive enough, you'll be able to read its narrative of loss.

The gift of any place in soil and leaf and limb remains remote until you expose your soft human belly to its brokenness.

These days, swimming in the outdoor pool is a lot more popular than wading in the lake or the river.