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Rat race leaves no time for being friends with nature

Feb. 1, 2007

By GRACE MAALOUF

I have a brilliant plan for my life. I swear I do.

It involves things like internships, coffee, working nights and weekends and climbing long, metaphoric ladders that need analyzing and possibly burning. It's detailed, it's motivated -- it's probably too idealistic. Most of the time, I want to follow it anyway.

But then some days my stupid commune gets in the way.

You see, I like to pretend I'm friends with nature.

I like to pretend I could live next to a pond for two years or be that pilgrim by the creek and disconnect from my cell phone, computer and the magnetic clutches of "Stalkerbook."

I like to pretend it would actually be awesome if, as a good friend of mine recently put it, I could just drop out of college and "grow stuff."

A commune seems so peaceful and fun. I could plant herbs for natural medicine and other people could raise some sheep for wool. We could knit the wool into un-dyed sweaters for everyone and make funky green soap from gritty organic stuff. Throw in some solar panels and a cute little well for good measure and it would be a beautiful, well-oiled machine. Hemp-oiled.

The problem is, I can't decide where in my life I should place the commune years.

They don't really fit in anywhere, except maybe retirement. And by then, I'll be too old and tired from my brilliant life plan to till the soil or stir the big batches of soap or skip out on the joys of Tempur-pedic mattresses and TiVo.

I want to live out in the woods and be one with nature now.

But it feels like there's no time for relaxing anymore. There's so much competitiveness and pressure for productivity in our society, relaxation has shifted down on our list of priorities.

This seems trivial, but considering stress contributes to so many major health problems, maybe it's not trivial at all. Maybe we just all need to calm down and light some incense and do some yoga in a forest clearing.

Well, most people would probably prefer the carpeted floor of their living room.

This brings up the second problem with my commune ­-- no matter how much I like to pretend I'm friends with nature, nature definitely does not want to be friends with me.

Nature wants to kill me. It's repeatedly tried, starting with my premature birth. It bites me. It's chased me around with earthquakes and mudslides and forest fires -- and that was just in California. The Texas chapter of nature has its own assassins: tornadoes and satanic heat waves. One fiery hot summer, as a small child, I was walking in my dried-out backyard and nearly fell into a crevice. so gigantic it was probably actually a skylight for Lucifer's living room.

I still can't help hoping that someday nature and I will make peace. Every now and then, I see moments of reconciliation: beautiful sunsets, perfect temperatures, ice patches that make people in high heels fall.

It just might work out if I find the right time and people.

And if anyone else is interested in interrupting their brilliant life plans to help out with my commune, it should be easy to find me. I'll be stuck behind a computer, with my cell phone on, checking Facebook obsessively. Or doing yoga -- preferably on the floor of my carpeted living room.

Grace Maalouf is a sophomore university scholars major from Fort Worth.

Opinions expressed in the Lariat are not necessarily those of the Baylor administration, the Baylor Board of Regents or the Student Publications Board.

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