A somewhat ironic realization came to me from my experience of living close to nature. I enjoy having nature around me (much more than an urban environment). However I enjoy it more while being indoors. I don’t feel welcome in nature, I feel discomfort. Sometimes I even feel threatened by nature. Nature is not a familiar environment for me … though I am working on it (I am writing this on a new roofed deck I built where I be somewhere in between outside and inside.
That irony was amplified when I realized something about my relationship with shopping malls. My visits to the city are rare and functional … I only go when I need to do something or bring something from the city. Frequently my visits will include a stop in a shopping mall (though I avoid them if I can) due to the comfort of having several kinds of shops in one place. When I enter a shopping mall my legs become heavy and I move fast so I can leave as soon as possible. Yet at the same time there is something comfortable about it for me. The shopping mall is a familiar environment to me. Even though I don’t like it, I know how it works, I know how to make it work for me … I can get around in it.
In many ways these two realizations frame a transition I am experiencing in life. From something familiar that I dislike and distrust to something in which I feel at home but I don’t know my way around yet.