For many of us, the outdoors has been a place of excitement, adventure and refuge for most of our lives. While we've all grown up in different places around the world, with different climates and different landscapes, chances are that each of us has a favorite outdoor memory or two...
Perhaps your favorite outdoor memory is from when you were a child, catching fireflies in the backyard with friends. Or maybe it's a favorite camping or hiking trip you took or a beautiful outdoor wedding you attended. What's your favorite memory of being in the outdoors? What are the specific details that you love about your favorite memory, and has it helped inspire your outdoor space today? Have you incorporated elements of your favorite outdoor memory into your outdoor space? If so, tell us how!
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Comments (9)
I grew up in rural VT, and my whole childhood was spent in the woods behind my house. How can I have a favorite moment? There were so many:
exploring trees and mountains and flowers from top to bottom
swimming in cold, clear lakes
driving down dusty dirt roads
"treks" with my dad on forgotten logging trails
husking corn on the front stoop
sigh...
Now I live in Brooklyn and my outdoor space is the magnolia tree that flowers outside my window. Somehow it's enough to keep me going... the birds still wake me up on summer mornings and light filters in through the leaves.
All of my favorite childhood memories took place outdoors. In fact, I'd say that when I wasn't in school or sleeping, I was outdoors.
I grew up in the Caribbean in a very small house, so it was so much more fun to play outside. I spent all of my summers swimming at the beach till my fingers and toes were wrinkled, then we'd go bathing in the river to wash off the salty sea water. Fun times!
My family had a "rustic" summer cabin on a little lake in Michigan. What comes to mind as a "favorite outdoor memory" is rowing the undersized rowboat around in the lake, looking at waterlilies and fish and turtles. Apart from having a tiny pond with waterlilies once before, this particular memory doesn't lend itself to my home... until I win Megabucks and buy a lakefront house! (HA!)
Climbing the apple tree at my childhood home and entertaining myself for hours.
Camping in the redwoods and going on night hikes and roasting marshmellows.
Climbing the log ladders to the cliff houses at Mesa Verde National Park, and scrambling around on boulders at Rocky Mountain. I loved how safe I felt with my dad behind me, knowing he wouldn't let me fall. There are so many camping memories though!
Maybe that's why I like having rocks from my travels lying around?
Smelling honeysuckle blossoms.
Sitting in trees in wooded lots.
Climbing what seemed like enormous mountains of dirt at home construction sites, then sliding down ~ I know, dangereux.
The adventure of short-cutting thru as many backyards as possible.
Collecting everything, but mostly, autumn leaves.
The first shoots of spring....I could go on and on.
Thanks for this question!
Oops! I forgot this: I plant those flowers that I have fond memories of, e.g. irises, marigolds (I love their pungent scent when pinched, but the flower itself is sweet smelling, etc. Mainly, tho, my favorite memories are fragrance related: digging a hole/smell of earth; smell after rain, mowing grass...so I guess it's really nothing that I actually do, but rather the experience of the outdoors, whether it's working in the garden, or sitting and relaxing, which conjures up memories for me.
I grew up on a dairy about an hour west of Boise, Idaho. I loved our summers. I played a lot of catch with my dad when he had a spare moment, had my own three-wheeler (before they were illegal) and road it all day on the days I wasn't at the local pool, caught pollywogs, tried to nurse baby birds and bunnies back to being able to living out in the wild again, playing in the cottonseed stacks, and went to our local drive-in a lot of Friday and Saturday nights. I also remember my mom mowing the grass. She was pretty obsessed with our lawn, but it showed in how lush it was. Nobody had a lawn that you could play in without shoes or socks like we did. I played a lot of softball growing up -- I remember volleyball camps and Girl Scout camp. I have been having some sort of sentimental crisis and have been at used stores looking for things that remind me of my youth -- toys, late-seventies decor, kitchenware, and furniture, old board games. I have had a real hard time looking at pictures though. My dad has been gone for three years now, and I still can't look at pictures.
I was camping with a friend on Edisto Island in SC. We took a midnight walk through the campground without a flashlight in the pitch black darkness, trying to stick to the trail-- and getting sort of disoriented--when suddenly we found ourselves in a shower of lightening bugs ("fireflies" for you non-southerners). The effect was absolutely stunning, and kind of surreal--all this murky darkness randomly illuminated by thousands of hovering, silent "stars", which lit the trail enough for us to get back on track. I've seen lightening bugs before and since, but never in such a huge, otherworldly swarm. It was magnificent.