Remembering How to Breathe
Why I started visiting a new park every weekend at 58
I’ve always been drawn to nature, but for most of my life I was only an observer, never truly part of it.
As a sheltered Gen X child, my world was small. My father was overprotective and my mother didn’t want me going anywhere. My outdoor adventures were limited to our backyard with its steep hill and little copse of trees. That became my private world of imagination. Occasional picnics at the local park felt like a big treat.
When I turned 18 and finally left home, everything changed. I fell in love with the outdoors. My ex and I went camping, day hiking, and swimming at the base of waterfalls. We climbed Appalachian mountaintops to watch the sunset. I couldn’t get enough.
Then life got heavy. Work, bills, and exhaustion slowly pulled me away. Years passed before I realized how much I missed it.
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About four years ago I started leaving for work early just so I could sit under a moss-covered tree I named Treebeard. I’d play music for it, say what I was grateful for, and breathe. That small habit reminded me how much I missed being in nature.
So I made myself a simple promise: every weekend I would visit at least one new park, community park, or greenway. It quickly became my ritual.
One especially hard day, I was carrying so much stress that my neck and shoulders felt locked in stone. I was on the verge of a meltdown. Instead of staying home, I grabbed lemongrass incense and drove to a nearby community park. It was loud and crowded — soccer games, family reunions, music blaring. But something told me to stay.
I found a circle of large rocks off the main path. I climbed onto the biggest one, sat cross-legged, and struggled to push the incense sticks into the hard ground. They kept snapping, but I finally got them lit. With Tibetan singing bowls playing in my ears, I closed my eyes, rolled my shoulders, stretched my neck, and breathed.
This is what the Japanese call “forest bathing” — a proven way to lower stress and calm the nervous system. Twenty minutes later, the tension began to leave my body. I took out my earbuds and simply listened to the trees sighing and the frogs singing. For the first time in days, I felt grounded.
These weekend visits have become more than walks. They are my reset button. As a single, 58-year-old asexual woman living paycheck to paycheck, life throws constant curveballs. The parks let me shed some of that weight. I touch bark, smell the earth, watch turtles and salamanders, and let my childhood sense of wonder wake up again.
I talk to trees. I greet the land and the local spirits. Some people might think it’s silly. I don’t care. This is how I remember how to breathe.
I still get exhausted. Some weekends I’m sore the next day. But I keep going — one park at a time — slowly coming back to a part of myself I thought I had lost.
