My nature journaling this month is testimony to the idea that a little bit goes a long way.
Reflecting on my May nature journal entries two months later, I’m surprised by how much nature journaling I was able to do, given that I was not able to spend much time on it. While Gaza was under attack, and immediately afterward, I was working long hours, writing several articles on the horrific situation there and its political context. So most of my journaling was done in the first week of the month but after the Gaza war began on 10 May, I did give myself a few minutes here and there to write down what I was observing — both internally and externally.
It was hard for me to get back in the mindset of nature journaling or really anything else after the war. But I’m glad that I was still journaling at a reduced level versus not doing it at all, trusting that it would help me reconnect to that which makes life worth living, to borrow from the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
