Maine Made My Heart Sad

About a year ago I read an article about Maine. The author, Bob Wasserman, is a fellow Mensan, though we’ve never met. The tagline on the article was “After 25 years of losing himself as an engineer stuck in cubeville, it was time for this Mensan to rediscover the joys of being alive, even if it meant going it alone.”

He says he loves to write, that writing is his passion.

I was looking in a mirror, darkly.

I’ve been working so long now that I know of a lot of people who died before me, though only a few at the workplace. As I listened to the air recirculation motors and squinted my eyes at the fluorescent lights above me, I thought, for just a moment, that I was in the beginning of the movie “Joe versus the Volcano” and could feel my life sucked out of me.

A Volcano freed Tom Hanks

When he stated in his article that he had a serious case of Nature Deficit Disorder, I understood exactly what he meant. So I read his article and looked at the dust-colored cube walls that surround me and my heart almost stopped.

We seek the peace, the freedom.

Bob talked about how he stayed outside for months, sometimes even sleeping outdoors, to reclaim his roots, his link to nature. The air, the food, the movement, the absolute freedom brought joy to him. Reading about it struck a knife through my heart. I yearned to go to Maine, to chop wood in the cool air, to eat the strawberries and walk to town for fresh-baked bread.

And then my heart stopped once again, and I returned to work. Just like today.