Where My Feet Touched the Ground

Through those years, I learned something I never expected: the earth can heal.

Not in any grand or mystical way. Simply, quietly. Grass, wet and soft under my hands. The cold smell of soil after rain. The ground beneath me, steady when nothing else was.

Some nights I would go outside and sit on the grass, looking up into the black sky. I didn't think about anything. I didn't try to fix anything. I just sat there and let the darkness above me be bigger than the darkness inside me. Those few minutes were often the most relieving moment of my whole day. Sometimes of my whole week.

I walked a lot, too. In cold, wet weather, when nobody else wanted to be outside. I walked without a destination, seeing nothing but my own feet on the path, one step and then another. I wasn't going anywhere. And somehow, that was exactly what I needed.

The ground doesn't ask anything of you. It just holds you up. Every single step.

I can't explain why it helped. Maybe because the ground doesn't need you to be strong or cheerful or finished healing. It simply holds you, whoever you are that day.

It didn't solve everything. But on the days when nothing else could reach me, the earth sometimes did. A little more than anything else I tried.

If you're in your own storm right now, maybe try this. Go outside, even for five minutes. Take off your shoes if you can, or just sit on the grass. Look up.

You don't have to feel better. You only have to breathe, and let the ground hold you for a while.

With love, from HerWay

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