I love walking through a door into the outside. I noticed this about myself several years ago – a whiff of fresh air, a little breeze and I take a big breath and feel a sense of joy. Sometimes I even open my arms and take an even bigger breath.
Is it claustrophobia? I don’t consider myself to be severely claustrophobic – no problems navigating life, although I’m not sure how long I would last in a full elevator stuck between floors. The idea of crawling into a tunnel (like Phillippe in Ladyhawk) gives me the creeps and I’ve abandoned a book once because all the action takes place in a deep cave (Blind Descent by Nevada Barr). No problems with planes, no problems in crowds. I have done caves of my own free will, although I’m really not happy while I’m underground.
But I don’t think its claustrophobia; I just think I like going outside. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
What about you? Inside or outside?
Trail Baboon 
Rise and Shine Baboons!
I love being outside, and I find I must have access to windows when I am inside. When I had the Highland Park office, there were several offices which were entirely inner suites– my idea of hell. As I write this reply, I am sitting on my back deck watching the early morning backyard activity. I found 2 ripe cherry tomatoes on the potted tomato plant, I smell the fresh air. A blue jay is having a fit about something in the blue jay universe. Traffic from the freeway, at least a 1/2 mile away is loud this morning, joined by the noise of a jet flying overhead.
May through September I sit outside morning and evening–mornings on the back deck, evenings on the front patio, unless it rains. Tiki torches drive off many, but not all, of the bugs. Last night I sat out with Carlos Nakai flute music playing. Front and center just past the patio wall, a Cooper’s Hawk breezed by, checking out the local rabbits I hope. This is my slice of heaven. My slice of heaven has been populated by toads and chiggers this year. The chiggers cause a certain level of itching misery, but with those bites present I know I am fully alive for another day.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I had the same reaction to Blind Descent. It’s the only one of Barr’s books I didn’t finish. I was even okay with diving on wrecks on Isle Royale, but not caves.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Welcome to the Trail. Like you I managed the Isle Royale mystery, although it was a little creepy in the underwater scenes. But Blind Descent, I just couldn’t do!
LikeLike
It is good that young folks are not graded on how gracefully they handle adolescence. Had I been judged, I would have earned an F. I entered adolescence as a happy, friendly kid. I left it with serious self esteem issues that never entirely went away.
That crisis took a special form with me. While I was anxious about mixing with my peers and dating, I had an alternative that was not threatening: the natural world. People problems made me uncomfortable. Being outdoors, by contrast, was consistently beautiful, calming and positive. The choice seemed simple.
Much of my personal history can be summed up as the extended efforts of a young person to accept the inevitability of living as a social person when his preference was always to be outdoors and alone.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Outside except when the weather may be hazardous to my health. EX_ Minus 30, violent lightning or wind storms, 100 degrees with 70+ dewpoints.
C in O
LikeLiked by 2 people
The dewpoints are what kill me (not literally). 60+ is bad; 70+ is horrendus.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Amen.
LikeLike
I am inside but mildly claustrophobic. Last winter I was ride sharing and took the back seat of a very small car. I could barely move what with wearing a heavy jacket and all the tools sharing the compartment. It was going to be an hour long trip and the driver gets to select the radio station. Well, he selected a station that played what I call “angry white boy” music; loud and unintelligible. Half an hour down the road, I had a panic attack. I had to get out of that car. Sweat was soaking my clothes. I was nauseous. My head hurt. My companions were really confused by the whole experience. I had them drop me at a truck stop. My sister came down to get me. Now I carry a tiny bottle of lilac fragrance just in case another episode comes up.
LikeLiked by 2 people
That sounds like a terrifying experience, Wes.
LikeLike
Yikes!
I don’t think I’ve ever had a full-blown panic attack, but just reading about this experience made me want to claw my way out.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is quite amazing how calming a scent of lilac or lavender calms me down.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good that you have found out what helps.
LikeLike
When I had my knee replacement surgery eleven years ago, I chose the Woodwinds Hospital in Woodbury because one of the highlighted services was aromatherapy. Turned out that amounted to a cotton ball with a drop of lavender oil pinned to my hospital gown. Don’t know what I expected, but I know it was something more esoteric than that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, sounds just terrible….
LikeLike
Outside in the fall, summer, and spring can be pretty nice here when the wind isn’t blowing. We have very little humidity. The wind seems to be ever present here, though. It is stressful and exhasting to contend with. I am more likely to be inside than outside.
LikeLike
I like to think I am an outdoor girl, but I am consistently inside more than outside (even with that gorgeous back yard in Robbinsdale). The screen porch helped – it felt like a combination of the two.
I have been known (like my mother) to set up the sewing machine or typewriter (long before laptops) in the back yard, but you always forget something you need and are constantly running inside for it.
Traveling by bike a lot this summer has gotten me outside more often.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I think it is so cool that you can get around by bike so often, BiR.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Outside, but not in the kind of hot, humid summer weather where the air feels heavy and thick and it’s hard to breathe.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like being outside but I don’t like heights. I like to see what is coming at me, so I dislike being in the mountains. Give me the wide open plains.
LikeLike
Then you’re in the right place!
LikeLike
At every house we’ve owned, I’ve built a patio or a deck or both, but I hardly ever sit on them. It appears I like the idea of sitting outside better than actually doing it.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I practically lived outside during summers while growing up. Now, high heat and high dew points just leave me wilted. Like C in O, I prefer outdoors when the weather cooperates. During the winter I am definitely an indoor person.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ditto with the living outdoors while growing up here. In fact, there was a period of a few years when we lived in a small, overcrowded house and us kids put up tents and slept outside all summer long. I suppose there must have been some stormy nights when we slept indoors, but for the most part, we camped out. We probably had to sleep indoors when school was in session so it would be easier for my mom to rout us out of bed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wonder if some of this is related to my resistance to air-conditioning. Both YA and I have a window unit for our bedrooms but to-date neither of us have put it in this summer. I really like open windows and breezes better!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey Hey Kids!
DC is a little warm today and the humidity is up a bit; not like MN summer swealty days and not like It was here last week but it’s warm.
Having a great time and seeing lots. Love love love being outside (when the weather is nice).
Working in the college shop, I feel so bad on nice days when I know in my past I would have been home doing something outside. Still hard to get used to that.
I open the shop doors whenever weather permits. Course middle of winter I’m OK working inside.
Here in the room we’re having a hard time getting a comfortable temperature. I like it about 70 but it would be nice if I could adjust the vents and not having it blowing right on me.
Kelly prefers about 76.
In any case, I need some air moving.
LikeLiked by 4 people
im so lucky . i am both
i love it outside and prefer it but i love it inside and since most of my stuff happens indoors its a good thing.
i enjoy doing what ic an on the patio ( why am i indoors right now… i’m moving) (better)
my warehouse is a 10,000 sq ft cavern that has a garage door on the back and a lobby in the front. the air doesnt move well so summer gets real hot and winter gets real cold if the doors are left open. in the summer i can have it be 15-20 degrees cooler with the doors shut, in the winter. it is tolerable (not warm with the doors shut) the room is wonderful on the days whne it is 60 on a summer morning and i can leave the doors open but thankfully cooler when the hot humid day is trying to sneak in
oor shut.
LikeLike