When I was younger, I thought “going out into nature” was something special — a whole event. Barbecue, folding chairs, too many bags, and someone always forgetting the salt. But with time, my idea of nature changed. It’s not necessarily a forest 30 miles away. It can be the lilac bush outside my window. A tree in the park. The sky through the curtain. And the more I started noticing it — the more I could breathe. Not metaphorically. Truly, physically easier.

I keep a small garden on my balcony. Nothing grand: just a few pots — lavender, rosemary, mint. I greet them with my morning coffee. No one talks. No one needs anything. It’s just me and the green. Some people call it “horticultural therapy.” I just call it... finally, some peace. My doctor once told me, “You seem calmer lately.” I smiled. Didn’t mention it might be the mint doing its quiet work.

When I go for walks now, I don’t track steps or burn calories. I just go. No destination. I watch the leaves drift. A stray cat dart across the path. A child toss a pinecone into a puddle. That’s the kind of therapy they don’t sell in pharmacies. It’s the kind that teaches you to just be. Not in the past, not in your head — just here, now. Wind on your cheek, gravel underfoot.

With age, I’ve gained a strange ability to notice the subtle. The way stone warms under your palm in the sun. The crisp scent of dried herbs. A shift in light that tells you it’s nearly evening. I don’t know if science can explain it, but I feel it in my bones: this is how the soul says, “Ah, there I am.” It’s like leaving a noisy café and walking into a quiet library — suddenly, you can hear everything clearly.

We live in a world obsessed with doing, achieving, checking off lists. Somewhere along the way, I chose to step off that treadmill. Not because I can’t — but because I don’t want to. I like being more than doing. And nature — she’s the perfect companion for that. She never rushes, and yet everything happens in time. Maybe that’s her lesson: to live slowly, but fully.