brushes with nature

the inky blue-black of night, haunted by a million pinpricks of starlight.
the spidering eddies of sweat on sun-scorched skin.
an unbroken sky in a plain of desert-sized trees.

somehow given that it snowed yesterday, it seemed appropriate to talk about nature today. i have a serious absence of nature in my life. about as much nature as i get these days is taking the trash out on thursday nights. sometimes i even beat j to it, just for the barest brush with The Outside. which is probably the lamest thing you've ever heard of, i know.

there's this commercial i saw a long time ago (set in wyoming? montana? probably northern california?) in which some people are camping. i have no idea what the commercial was for (probably a car. or maybe toothpaste.), but all i remember is the pristine, absolutely fantasy-worthy setting: dark, snow-topped mountains in the distance, the greenest, flattest, plushest meadow underneath it, and a tent (or pop up camper? that would be j's dream come true) alongside a clear, bubbling stream in the foreground. i'm sure there were fishing rods. or maybe it was night and a full moon? anyhow, it's like the epitome of the nature i've always wanted to be in (if you know what i'm talking about, please tell me where i can find it!), and when j talks about camping, i actually imagine that scene and then immediately start frowning, because i know nothing can live up to those expectations (especially in georgia).

and yes, i fully get the irony inherent in nature by way of tv commercial.

anyways, back to trash cans.

no, wait, back to nature. well, being as i clearly have so little experience with nature, i've said all i have to say about that. now here's some pictures of our backyard. which bugs me, annoys me, and for which i'm also, at times, mildly grateful. mostly because of the grill that sits back there, because i don't have to walk my dog anymore, and because i feel a teeny tiny bit less guilty about my children's houseboundness when we brave our backyard for about ten minutes every other month. photos from one of those times recently, below: