Best Self Magazine

A Walk On The Wild Side: Nature as Therapy

View of sunset from atop Cadillac Mountain; photograph by Celeste Orr
Cadillac Mountain at sunset. All photographs by Celeste Orr.

One woman’s search for emotional healing guides her outside her own doorstep into the embrace of Mother Nature

I’m a wife and a mom. I buy groceries, give hugs, cook meals, plan adventures, scrub floors, and wash dishes. I’m also a writer and I homeschool my teenagers, and for the past two and a half years I’ve been trying to work remotely full-time, travel with my family full-time, homeschool full-time, manage a full-time graduate school schedule, and start my own business. To say it’s been too much is putting it mildly.

I knew it was too much for anyone to handle (apart from Captain Marvel or Superwoman perhaps, neither of which am I anything like), but I told myself it was temporary – a necessary evil in a season of necessary transition. Still, it’s been too much for too long, and I feel myself breaking and barreling towards burnout.

I’m in the process of untangling myself from the

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Best Self Magazine

Best Self Magazine3 min readCrime & Violence
An Invitation to Peace
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes — We live in a world where war coverage is live, social media keyboard warriors are loud and fierce, and racism and “anti-thisism” and “anti-thatism” ring loudly in our ears. Every day, we are bombarded with negativ
Best Self Magazine4 min read
When a Pregnancy Follows a Loss
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes — She was a beautiful baby, with long black eyelashes and big dark lips. I will never know the sound of her coo or the color of her eyes. They never opened. My first child was born dead. Stillborn. She moved and gre
Best Self Magazine7 min read
How I Left: Reflections on My Journey into Marriage…and Out
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes — My grandmother was fourteen when a man in her Southern Italian village asked to marry her. He was twenty-eight, a stranger to Gramma. She said, No! But her mother told her, “Marry him. He’ll take you to America.”

Related Books & Audiobooks