It is almost sunrise and after a long night -I am in my sleeping around 7 pm and then waking up at 1 am because I think better at night era- of obsessing over balcony garden ideas, cement vases DYIs while snacking on mangoes in between my coffee, I was logging in here to pen something like a poetic monologue or participate in a contest.
But the first post I collided with was by my good friend 
...for my masking wallflower
I have been peeling layers of who I thought was me to get here and the biggest find is that I am a masking introvert. I have crippling anxiety but if you saw me walking down a busy street, you'd pick up the vibes of an extrovert.
The soft masculinity in me screams confidence yes, but I am usually fighting to keep standing and sometimes I even forget how to walk. Plugging into some soothing music helps hence my obsession with earphones.
Simply put, populated spaces drain me.
This is not the case though if I am surrounded by trees, a body, or a stream of water. Not does it happen when the birds replace the noise my ears endure in our lower middle-class estate. I treasure every encounter I have in the wild.
I often crave a walk past civilization and since I already mastered how to take those in my head as a necessity to cope when I was serving my sentence... It just spilled into a daily routine for my green spirit to survive the concrete jungle.
So... when I get an opportunity to experience nature itself, I do so intentionally as I rely on my memories to keep me going when I can't. I should add that it doesn't matter if it's an actual direct contact or something captured on a good video, -I use them to take myself where I can't go physically- it will still work.
I am wired to be healed by nature. To stand in awe of it. I believe trees hold the key to regulating our planet. Them and the sea of course. Oh and her disfigured face must hold the secret to life itself. We just need to drain her mysterious waters first.
When I stand at the feet of any tree, its age comes to mind. I look up at its trunk wondering how many of my kind stood in its presence before and worshipped it, wondering if they had the realization I often do when I find myself in the same spot... That its ancestors must have shielded or fed mine before they could rig their now-extinct and indigenous seeds plus habitats.
Rivers calm me down. I feel like they carry my worries and sins in their currents when I sit next to them. Dams do that too. I have never been near a larger water body than that but I have watched enough on screen to know that they both excite and frighten the shit out of me.
Mountains are sacred to me. We traditionally worship one and so my soul regards them as holy grounds or altars risen from the earth by the gods themselves. I'd love to be able to hike one, one day just to conquer its rocky height with my two feet just to embody a birds-eye view.
Animals have a special place in my heart too and even though I have never had one to form a consistent relationship with, the few times I have had the privilege of being close to them, I have felt loved.
From all these perks came my love for growing food and nurturing the earth as it has always done for me. It is also what helped me understand the nostalgic feeling of like a reincarnated witch or a healer that exists deep within me. How else can I explain it?
Nature grounds me. It reminds me of my fragile mortality and how lucky I am to able to experience all that it encompasses. I geek over the entire ecosystem that comes with it. From the simplest to the most complex. They all excite me.
...photos taken by my Redmi and that is the last time I took a nature walk at a park located right in the heart of my capital
wambuku w.