WORDS & PICTURES: Andreia Esteves
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When am asked to picture my happy place, images of moments spent in nature are sure to come up. I think about mountains in Europe: snowy Swiss Alps, the green Scottish Highlands, and dearest, and closest to me, the Portuguese mountains. Some of my most fond childhood memories include those of holidays spent at my grandma’s cottage. Her house set deep in a valley where you could see Serra da Estrela: the highest mountain in mainland Portugal.
It’s impossible for me to pinpoint when I started to seek refuge in nature. What I do know is that it is definitely a necessary experience for me. Just walking in nature has a soothing quality that I can’t find in any other activity. Through the years, the mountains have taught me important life lessons. Those of resilience (keep climbing), gratitude (look around you), and patience (you’re almost there!). It was only during the first COVID lockdown that, finding myself stuck at home, I began to wonder: what is it about nature that makes us feel good? And why do I need it so badly?
To be honest, I knew part of the answer already. Like all introverts, I can feel overly stimulated in noisy environments, and the mountains offer me the solitude needed to recharge. Growing up in a city, I know what noisy is. The sound of my neighbourhood was that of cars passing by and honking loudly, buses screeching, people chatting till the wee hours of the morning, and bicycles whizzing past. The hum of the city has its charm, but it can be quite deafening when you’re exposed to it constantly.
In her book The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, American journalist Florence Williams gave me the full answer to what I’d been musing about. According to her research, nature not only makes us feel more relaxed by reducing our cortisol levels, but also makes humans experience a very powerful emotion: wonder.
Wonder is an accurate word to describe what I felt when I spent many a summer holiday at my grandma’s cottage. Hot July days meant running outside, picking strawberries from the garden, listening to birds chirping, gathering new leaves for my journal, and hiding behind trees. When it got dark, my grandma would call for me, and I’d go inside, cheeks still hot from my adventures, and read the rest of the evening through.
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Wonder seems to come to us easily when we’re little: there’s always new games to play, new things to see, new foods to try. Yet, as we grow up and get older, we half forget about it. As the wise Little Prince would put it: “growing up is not the problem, forgetting is.”
I was reminded of the restorative power of nature when I had to accompany a friend to the airport for an early flight, a couple of years ago. It was pitch dark when we were waiting by the curb for our taxi, and I was certain this was bound to be a dreadful morning. I was saying goodbye to someone I wouldn’t see for years, and I was also exhausted, cold, and grumpy. In waiting desperation, I looked up. A starry sky, full of bright starts was above me. The most beautiful sky I’d ever seen.
The wonder that filled my heart that morning is similar to what I felt when visiting Switzerland for the first time. I’d never hiked up a mountain in Europe before, and I was positive I couldn’t do it. When, two hours later, I reached the top of Interlaken, legs shaking and heart pumping, I stood there feeling the mountain air, and taking in the view: the lake, the little houses, the green all around me. It was so peaceful.
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Since the pandemic hit, I’ve been away from the mountains of Europe. There haven’t been any more trips to Switzerland, or Scotland, and no more driving friends to the airport. Yet, if there’s something nature has taught me, it is that you don’t need grandiose adventures to find quiet in your life. Sometimes, it is the little moments that count. Walking in the forest (or in an empty park) with your dog, lying down in the grass to see the curious shapes of the clouds, the strike of inspiration that only happens when you look out of the window, and feel the sun in your face.
When am asked to picture my happy place, images of moments spent in nature are sure to come up. Those of adventures spent abroad, those of summers past, those of memories I haven’t created yet. The wondrous miracles that can happen every day, when you close your eyes and simply listen.
