Appreciating Nature

My journey to appreciating nature and understanding that we should place more regard and importance than we already do to our environment started at the same time with my journey to self discovery and appreciation.
It was the time when I realized that even as we focused the cameras on ourselves, appreciating our beauty and clothes and appearances, we shouldn't forget to pay homage to the places that afford us an opportunity to BE in them. When I opened my eyes to a selfishness, subtle in its expression maybe because of normalization, but very effective in its influence on our thought processes and patterns.

Running out of that homophobic room, leaving that sexist conversation, walking away from dehumanization at a point had to mean being on my own, enjoying my own company, engaging myself in deep conversations, and learning how to be with me.

Nature became for me a kind of a metaphor for my existence, for human existence as a whole. It helped me understand the concept of being and thriving even when no one around seemed to appreciate your inherent beauty.
It would take me coming across Koso's IG wall to to learn how to express yourself by just the click of a shutter. To fully comprehend how you could pour yourself into a camera to capture essence. Those professional doctored cute pictures did nothing for me. Hers were just Beautiful.
It would take meeting people like @Martha,@ jay wealth, @mr Bibi, @Matthew, @martins and @Simon to understand that I too was beautiful. They helped build a kind of a confidence that makes me stand in the mirror all day long staring and admiring.

Now I feel intertwined with my surroundings, and even the dim sunset on the horizon evokes certain emotions for me, and an overcast sky on a rainy day dampens my mood sometimes and at other times I jump up and down like the rain drops bouncing of the rooftops. Loud and cackling, coming to give life, to wash off the dust and give a bright new colour to everything, Even the common grass by the road.