Happy Sunday! This week, continuing with the month of guest hosts, Dan from the blog, Departing in 5 Mins is challenging us with the topic of Unbound.

Like most teenagers, passing my driving test and getting my driver’s license was like a rite of passage. I no longer need to depend on my parent to drive me anywhere. I can hit the road and go anywhere by myself. Even now, after 15 years of driving, I still feel that same sense of freedom each time I get into my car. I think it’s because I don’t often get the opportunity to go out on my own and when I do, I feel like a prisoner getting a taste of freedom for the first time.

It’s not everyday I get to take day trips into the mountains. In fact, those trips are becoming far and few in between, especially after my car accident last August. Now, every time I ask permission to head into nature, my mom would remind me of the accident and would tell me, “If anything happens to you, don’t come crying to me about it.”

This makes me want to go even more because at home, I feel like I’m trapped in a cage but on top of a mountain, I feel free. Just look at that view, there’s no limit and no border of where the mountainous and natural terrains stop and civilization and manmade terrains begins. It’s one of the endless list of beauties with nature.

I went on a 6-miles hiking adventure in the summer of 2020. It was the one place I didn’t see people wear masks. Everybody needed a taste of the fresh mountain air, even if they had to climb to 10,000-feet elevation to get it. The hike was wonderful in many ways, if not strenuous.

The temperature was a good 20-degree-Fahrenheit cooler and the water in these high-elevation lakes were crystal clear. It was truly a wonderful way to get away and forget that we were in the beginning of what was a long pandemic.

Finally, though I am bound by the climate I live in, I have the freedom to grow whatever I like to eat in my garden. I am unbound by the varieties and I can grow however many I like. Harvest time is always a special time for me and it often feels like a break in this monotonous cycle of work, eat, and sleep kind of life.

This year, so far, I’ve harvested bowls of strawberries during the month of June and currently harvesting bowls of cherry tomatoes each day after recently worked through several rounds of carrots. I’m now waiting for a black variety of tomatoes to ripen at the moment but all this food made me feel quite rich in the abundance of food as food can be quite expensive these days.