A friend calls me Country Bumpkin. I don’t mind. I find the most simple things in this world are also the most complex and far-reaching. I have a need to be surrounded by those complex simplicities. I do my best thinking when I’m alone, surrounded by nature. That’s when I have my epiphanies, my eureka-sparks, my moments of brilliance (okay, well, they’re brilliant to me.)

I need to touch the earth, to feel the sun on my face and the wind on my lips. I need the smell of soil and the sounds of birds. I need dragonflies and butterflies and tiny garden snakes. I need crickets and snails and random centipedes. I need to see the stars at night and wonder at the moon. I need the magic of trees. I need the sound of rain falling on the leaves and scent of a wet woodland floor, spring peepers and fire-flies.

When I am surrounded by the natural world, it doesn’t matter what I look like or sound like. It doesn’t matter what accomplishments I’ve made or failures I’ve experienced. All that matters is that I make like a flower, grow, bloom and produce some sort of seed for future flowers to grow, so that there will always be flowers on the earth. A seed can be an idea, an invention, an investment into the lives of others. A seed can be a song, a poem, a book. A seed can be a simple act of kindness. Flowers don’t compare themselves to other flowers. They just grow and bloom, according to whatever kind of plants they are.