a quiet afternoon
I used to work in London, KY, and whenever I had a bad day or just needed to escape the office, I would go to Levi Jackson State Park to look at the trees. It’s incredibly close to town but feels a world away. I would eat my lunch at one of the picnic tables and rest my eyes on the trees and the green grass.
It’s incredible what fresh air and sunshine can do for you. Although I don’t feel I have Seasonal Affective Disorder – I actually like the gloom of fall and the winter cold – I have some cousin of it where time spent with trees is directly correlated to my current mental health. There’s really not much else in Levi Jackson, but the trees are superb.
That’s an exaggeration. Levi Jackson is a small park, and its website isn’t the most helpful, but there are other things to do there if you so desire. There’s a lovely little campground, some playground facilities, a small museum, and a treetop adventure place with a ropes course and zipline. I just never avail myself of those things. I go there solely for the trees.
A few days ago, I was in the area and in a funk, so I drove over to McHargue’s Mill, a section of the park with a slow, glassy creek and some excellent trees. It’s a fairly popular place for people to go for lunch, it seems; every time I’ve been, there’s always been five or six other cars with others having a quiet lunch. There are usually children playing among the collection of millstones, feeding the ducks and enjoying the creek.
I almost always keep a ground blanket and a travel pillow in my car, so I ventured beyond the parking lot into a glade of trees cupped by a bend of the creek. I spread out the blanket in a sunny spot, kicked off my shoes, and laid down. It was early fall, but there were enough leaves on the ground to have a satisfying crunch. Best of all, it smelled like fall. Why do dead leaves smell so good? What about that particular decay releases endorphins? I lay there in the sunshine and crunched leaves in my hands, breathed in their sweet, slight spice, and just let myself relax. I focused my mind on the sounds – the birdsong, the leaves, children laughing, the occasional train going by. I let myself feel the warmth of the sun (even when it got too warm) and the crunch of the leaves underfoot. I focused on those tangible, good things, and taking my attention off my troubles for that hour gave me the distance I needed to handle them better.
The point of the story is this: nature is healing. Take that detour to look at trees. Go somewhere you can sit in the sunshine for a minute. And don’t forget that parks and green spaces we set aside as a society are for you. Even when they’re small, they have a lot to offer.
I don’t have a way to share the scent of the leaves or the warmth of the sun with you, but after I had my time to reset, I took a little video of my afternoon there. If you like crunchy leaves, birdsong, and sunshine, you can check it out here:
