“Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz.” If it weren’t for the catchy tune and bouncy beat of Billy Joel’s 1989 song “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” these images would continuously invoke insanity. Today, I could add a few lyrics of my own: “ICE raids, Greenland, Venezuela, vaccine slam.”
While Billy Joel uses music to put chaos in perspective, we must find our own self-soothing escapes. For me, that get-away is nature. Five years ago when the pandemic erupted, I discovered 44 forest preserves in Winnebago County, Illinois.
A self-prescribed checklist person, I needed to achieve something in the shadows of newscasters telling us to “shelter in place” and “quarantine.” My family and I put on hiking shoes and headed to geographically proximate parks to break free from isolation.
We hit Seward Bluffs located 15 miles west of Rockford, Illinois. We crossed limestone bridges, scaled steep hills, traversed wooden staircases, and spotted horseback riders in the snow. Anything to create inner peace!
At Colored Sands we surveyed the bird sanctuary, watched the bright sun amplify the beauty of gold and orange leaves, and sashayed through wildflower fields. Anything to create a diversion!
All told, we visited all 44 preserves in 15 months. Self-preservation practices were well-developed!
If “ballroom building, insurrection, tariffs, and inflation” have your blood pressure boiling, choose your response. What self-preservation practices have you established? The 44 forest preserves of Winnebago County will be seeing me again. I challenge you to find your place of peace.
I’m Anissa Kuhar and that’s my perspective.
