Winter Wednesday

 

"Go to the winter woods: listen there, look, watch, and the "dead months" will give you a subtler secret than any you have yet found in the forest.

Fiona Macleod, Where the Forest Murmurs 

Have you heard of "forest bathing?" A friend from The Ukes told me about her daily forest bath routine in a green belt near her home. Yes, the clothing stays on. The idea originated in 1982, when the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture created the term shinrin-yoku, which translates to “absorbing the forest atmosphere.”

The practice encourages people to simply spend time in nature and focus on what the senses are taking in. Outdoor mindfulness lowers blood pressure, heart rate, and levels of harmful stress hormones. Even 10 to 20 minutes a day in nature can lead to more feelings of well-being and happiness. 

I go slightly nuts when I can't get outside for a bit every day. My heart goes out to all the people confined indoors for various reasons. One of the saddest things about many nursing homes is the lack of peaceful outdoor space and fresh air.

Well, I'll be confined in the cafe this morning. Last week was crazy busy, because both Chef Francisco and the cafe manager were out, leaving the volunteer (me) to basically run the place. 

We did just fine with a slightly reduced menu. No fancy sandwich or composed salad selection, which aren't that popular with the senior set anyway. And much more expensive than the soup and half sandwich combo, a screaming deal.

The regular cafe manager creates good fresh soups daily. The substitute cook did her best and made an interesting "spaghetti soup" cobbled together with leftover mystery meat (hum) and various other things pulled from the fridge and pantry. The cafe smelled like our grade school cafeteria in 1958, where the kitchen ladies made everything from scratch (meaning mostly from cans.) I didn't have time to sample the soup, but people ate it up, no problem.