I Miss Nature

I Miss Nature
I’ve never thought of myself as particularly close to nature. I used to joke that a visit to Caribou Coffee counted in my book as a visit to the Great Outdoors. Yet, I’m feeling out of whack here for a number of reasons. I think one of them is my almost total isolation from the natural world. The climate here is harsh. The temperature since we’ve been here has almost always been well above 100 degrees, plus significant humidity. And the afternoon sunshine is brutal. Night-time is a little better, but it’s still usually in the 90s and humid. Walking around, even in the evening, leaves me dripping with sweat after only a few minutes. The upshot is that nobody goes outside in the summer. We live in air-conditioned hotels, step outside for the minute or so it take us to get on the van, and then walk into air-conditioned offices. The people who live here do the same. I’m not complaining about air-conditioning; I couldn’t stay here without it. But after only a couple of weeks, I’m already finding it unsettling to live completely indoors.
Even if the weather were cooler, though, I’m not sure how much time I would spend outside. The natural environment is simply sand and rock. Almost anything green is artificially maintained. People here walk along the corniche (the nicely maintained walkway along the gulf). Apart from that, the natural offerings are pretty scanty. This helps explain why people spend so much time in the malls. I’m missing Minnesota already!