What I find comforting about being out in nature is that nature don’t give a fuck about me. Nature doesn’t care if my boyfriend dumped me, if my transmission fluid is slowly leaking, if I’m drifting aimlessly through my life. Nature doesn’t care if I live or die, because I’m miniscule and unimportant in the grand scheme of life. My life is but a blip on the landscape of geologic time. I can see how that could make a person feel depressed or otherwise distressed, but I feel comforted. Nature ain’t worried about my problems, so why should I worry? My problems are tiny compared to the height of a mountain or the number of grains of sand in a dune. Being out in the vastness of nature gives me new perspective on how much my woes really matter.

I took the first photo in this post at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. The Man took the photo of me hugging the tree in Deer Creek Grove in Sequoia National Forest.