I am delighted to introduce you to Carol Tatsumi. Carol is the director at my kids’ cooperative preschool, and from our very first meeting I was drawn to and intrigued by her calming, heart-centered, stable presence – not a list of descriptors readily applied to most of us! Her connection with nature was apparent within minutes of that meeting, and now that I’ve read what she’s written here, I see how significantly that connection has shaped all the things I love about her.

I hope you find this interview as calming, hopeful, and trust-inducing as I find it to be, and all the more so, given the fear, dis-ease, and dis-trust that’s filling so many hearts as news from Japan continues to flow darkly. Consider your time with this, and the good things it does inside of you, a gift not only to yourself, but to our traumatized world.

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I’ve been fascinated by the connection I feel between you and the natural world, considering you were raised in such an urban environment and continue to live in one. Can you talk about the role that nature has played in your life, and how this has come about?

If I could consider times or places that formed my earliest relationships with the natural world, they were strolls when I was a little girl around the countryside in Wisconsin, with my mother. My mother grew up there, on a small family farm, and our trips ‘back home’ in the summer involved mostly time spent at a lake cabin, almost exclusively out of doors. On walks my mother would tell me about the trees and animals we would see; birds that were nesting, animals that were bustling around. Often she would share what she had learned from her own mother, who loved the natural world, and who was herself a fierce protector of critters around their home, from red ants to raccoons and bees to badgers. No natural phenomenon was considered a threat in these stories, nor in my upbringing. Bees could be trusted to leave you alone if you left them alone, snakes could be trusted to go about there own business, weeds could be hid in when escaping cousins on a mission; most things had a purpose and it was our business as humans to let them have at it, step in if they needed our help, and admire, sometimes from a distance.

Now, while those were some of the earliest memories, all my other memories of growing up are tied to nature: the Chinese Elms that grew in our yard, the tall weeds in the vacant lot that we hid in from boys, the lizards in the planter that someone said would turn into alligators, the pets that we had (not the guinea pigs-why oh why did we have guinea pigs), sitting on the front yard under the Eucalyptus trees watching neighborhood boys walk by, stepping on the acorns during 4th of July parties, getting stung by a bee in high school.

As an adult, when I visualize the place where I am exposed to “the natural world”, it really begins just beyond my own physical self. It is the world that I move through, and it exists in little pockets between buildings where a flowering plant is growing, it is the air that is above me, it is the puddles by my house that I can walk through during the rain, and it is other inhabitants of the planet, so it is not really a place I need to ‘go’ to, but it is in my day to day existence.

That said, there are places where I go that are exquisite examples of the natural world, where there is a very wonderful flow from one organic surface to another, from one clump of sage to a clump of poppies, to a patch of dirt disturbed only by a monarch butterfly and where this natural world is left unbroken by cement surfaces or synthetic materials. There are places locally that I love like George F Canyon Preserve up in Palos Verdes where weeds abound (weeds are my favorite things, especially after a rain, soaking your jeans as you walk through them).

When our family lived in the big cement city that is Manhattan, NY, and our daughter was about 9, she and I were struck by the lovely trees around the Natural History Museum, the tulips that popped up around midtown, and Central Park! While a highly structured and planned natural environment, in Central Park there were beautiful piles of leaves for her to jump in, squirrels running around, and red-tailed hawks flying overhead, our first cardinal in red plummage during winter. There seems like there is nothing to worry about in the moment, and you can get lost examining a little bud on a tree, or a patch of dirt. I have walked in Central Park at night, ridden a motorcycle through mountain passes, walked in the desert far from marked trails, and I trust. What are the alternatives?

Maybe related to the last question: What are some of the lessons that you’ve learned or continue to learn from the natural world?

Things take time. Things grow slowly, and sometimes you cannot imagine what they will turn into, you just have to (no amount of strength will stop these forces) let go and trust that they will turn out as they are intended. You are going to be constantly surprised when you are immersed in the natural world, and sometimes you have to get out of your car, and get on a motorcycle, or walk, or bike, or skip to see things and you most definitely have to sit quietly for a long time until you hear things. Walking with a very young child is the most amazing way to putter along at the speed of nature.

That said, nature needs lots of support, advocacy, and protection in order to do what it does. Earth Day is coming up April 22, 2011. I often have used it as a day to reconnect with the natural environment just outside my door. I have learned that it is never too late to give something back to nature that trusts us with this place called earth.

How has your sense of trust been nourished by your relationship with nature?

Nature just is, and will always be. It might be manipulated, and parts of it might be irreparably lost, and yet sometimes it finds small chinks and openings to trickle through and thrive, and it can be counted on to surprise and thrill you. You can prepare, prepare, prepare and things just happen; jewels emerge from the struggles and between the cracks. This trust pushes me, leads me to venture deeper into untamed wild places without disabling fear. There, I have seen bison poking their noses into our tent in Yellowstone, there have been black bears on our path when hiking in Idaho, there has been cancer in our family, and loss, and scary nights in Turkey (one scary night in 6 months of backpacking through Europe and Asia), and they made the trip wonderful, magical, meaningful because in trusting, I took the trip. In the moment these surprises can be startling, and can throw you off balance. They make you feel fresh and awake and make you slow down. They had a smell, a feeling, a sense to them that is not there when looking at the static moments of the day.

When you’re afraid, are there things in the natural world that you turn to for comfort? Can you tell us a story about a time when this helped?

Nature is restorative for me. When I am not feeling well, or tired, and am not sure how to get back to homeostasis, I turn to nature. I get out of the house, I walk and look at places that have not been adjusted, or trimmed, or pruned, places considered ‘virgin pieces of land’. Places that have been left in their natural state to spread out, to get a bit rangey, to grow weeds. There is a ‘story’ that I am interested in here, that does not seem as rich of a tale when the lawn is manicured, or clipped, or sprayed to deter weeds. I read once that being in nature is really valuable, but the most valuable type of nature were those wild spots, where people had not arranged things….and this is hard to find. There are big wild places: National Parks like Joshua Tree, just a few hours from LA, are like that. There are places you can find that have not been explored for a long time, or that have withstood the touch of time. You can park your car and walk out to the desert and camp.

I can find some surprises, too, that have been created by humans, but have been left to their own devices: at our school’s neighbor’s house there are rose bushes where the rose hips have formed after the blossoms have dried. In my neighborhood there are sunflowers who have begun to drop their seeds in interesting patters. The other day a large hawk flew over our school on its way to building a nest further down the street. Trust me, nature is just outside our bodies, just outside the car window.

Some of us live in urban environments and, apart from long drives to the mountains or the country, aren’t sure how to connect meaningfully with nature. Are there any tips you might share with us for finding and nurturing this connection right where we are?

Slow down, slow down, slow down. Look down, look up. Change the angle of your eye, scoot forward in your car seat and peer out the top of your windshield, get out of the car and get on a bike. Wonder a bit: what do the clouds look like today and how has the wind affected them, what is going on with the leaves on the trees by where I park my car at school. What is laying on the sidewalk, and growing between the cracks? Ask someone who loves nature to take you on a walk so you can feel and sense their trust and so you can see differently. See and listen how they talk about the leaves on a Black Willow, or a Eucalyptus. Remember that video about the basketball passes where you are asked to watch for one thing, and then asked if you saw the second thing? Sometimes we rely on our moms to point things out we didn’t see before, sometimes our friends, sometimes a nature guide. I love being surprised. Trust that you will be surprised.