Missing Outdoors

       When asked about my summer recovering from ankle surgery and how did I manage being inside almost all the time, I joked that at least I missed the Texas heatwave. My outside excursions seldom lasted longer than ten minutes, and never included walking around our neighborhood ponds or cycling across town. In fact, I missed both walking and cycling, no matter how hot it was. I missed them – as in I didn’t have the opportunity, and I missed them – as in their absence left longing in my heart.

       Alastair Humphreys wrote, “It’s normal nowadays to spend most of our lives inside, temperature-controlled, light-switched, water-softened, air-freshened, and double-glazed ... I’m more at peace with myself and the world when I spend an extended period outdoors.”

       Me, I’ve spent most of my life, at least 90% of my career, indoors. But I got outside as much as I could.

       I first started running in 1978, and for the next 42 years 99% of those miles were outside. I prefer running outside no matter how hot or how cold. I felt the same way when I started cycling in 2010, preferring to tackle the heat and wind rather than retreat inside.

       When I try running or cycling indoors, my brain surrenders after twenty minutes. It’s all I can handle. I’ve tried to extend my indoor training time knowing that indoors is probably my future, but so far, I haven’t been very successful. Running or cycling indoors feels like a cardio workout but going outdoors is an adventure.

       In her book, The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain, Annie Murphy Paul mentioned a promising app called ReTUNE (Restoring Through Urban Nature Experience). It is an app developed by University of Chicago psychologist Marc Berman and doctoral student Kathryn Schertz and it works like a conventional GPS system, but instead of providing its users with the speediest route, it offers them the path with the greatest number of trees, the largest proportion of flowers, the highest frequency of birdsong.

       Annie Murphy Paul wrote, “Natural scenes are more coherent, lacking the jarring disjunctions common in man-made settings … natural scenes also offer more redundant information. Colors and shapes are repeated again and again ... Fractal patterns are much more common in nature than in man-made environments. Fractal patterns are those in which the same motif is repeated at differing scales ... There is a building pile of evidence that our ability to think clearly and solve problems is enhanced by encounters with these nature-like fractals.”

       When driving my pickup through Midland I often take routes through neighborhoods rather than zipping around Loop 250 or any of the major streets, even though it makes the trip longer, requires stopping at stop signs, and limits speed. I couldn’t explain why I did it so I never tried. I simply said, “I needed a change.” But after reading Paul’s book I think I was subconsciously searching for nature’s fractals.

       Last Thursday morning I called up the ReTUNE app to plot my route home from Whataburger, but I learned it only works in Chicago. That’s too bad. I would’ve enjoyed the alternate routes home.

       From my very first office job in 1979 I kept plants in my room. I loved big bushy plants around my windows and creeping ivy that ran across my desk. I wanted plants to provide fresh air in my closed and highly regulated environment. Now I wonder if my eyes were longing for fractal images of plants to counter the visual landscape of graph paper, spreadsheets, straight lines, and square corners.

       I must admit, though, that I love air conditioning and indoor lighting. I’ve met people who spend their entire lives outside among the fractals, and I don’t want that life for myself. I’m fortunate to have landed in a lifestyle and location that gives me the choice to enjoy the outside when I want and enjoy the climate-controlled indoors when I want. I’m grateful for that choice.

       I’m hoping Doctor Vineyard will release me to walk and bike in a few weeks. It’s about time to get back outside.

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“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.”
Psalm 119:32

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