These Are the Circumstances

"We're animals," she said, "never forget that," and he said, "Speak for yourself," and she said, "I'm serious, because we're just not made to sit around all day in an artificial environment staring into two-dimensional screens—which is why everybody's so unhappy and so neurotic and maladjusted and basically unhealthy," and he said, "Speak for yourself," and she said, "No, really, I'm serious."

At the time of this discussion they were seated in an artificial environment—a red, faux-leather banquette at Pizza Napoli—sipping Chianti and clutching their phones, into which they'd been separately staring just seconds before. Laurel, under the influence of Irina Chertoff, who owned and operated the local health food emporium, had become fascinated with the concept of shinrin-yoku (or nature-bathing, as it roughly translates from the Japanese) and was launching a campaign to convince him to attend a session with her.

He set down his phone and bent forward to draw a series of tight, concentric circles on the placemat with one of the crayons the management provided. There was music in the background, barely audible, a robotic thump and wheeze that was designed specifically to be ignored. Everybody else in the place was either texting or e-mailing. "I don't have anything against the basic concept," he said finally. "We could all use a little more fresh air, that's a no-brainer. It's just that the notion of needing a guide, an expert, to take you five hundred yards into a nature preserve so you can sit there for two hours and stare at a leaf is patently ridiculous. Why can't we dispense with the expert—and the fee, whatever she's going to charge—and just do it in the backyard, in the garden?" He tapped the rim of his glass. "With wine as our guide?"

"You're missing the point, Nick. The garden's artificial, too. And we never just sit there because your mind is always, 'Oh, the rosemary needs to be trimmed back' or 'Did I remember to water the begonias?' or 'Mulch, is there enough mulch?'"

"You think the Peter and Esperanza Quiñones-Thatcher Preserve is any different?"

"'Forever Wild,' that's their motto."

"Right," he said, leaning across the table to tease a slice from the pizza. "Forever since when?"

"Nineteen ninety-three, which is what the plaque out front says. It's all organic, OK? A tree falls, they let it lie. Humus, think humus."

"And what about poison oak? Snakes? Yellow jackets? Are they part of the experience or do you have to pay extra?"

"That's extra," she said. "But really, what have we got to lose?"

The nature walk—or bath, he corrected himself, since a walk has a purpose and this had no purpose or destination or goal other than to show up and remit fifty dollars apiece for the privilege—was on Saturday, from ten in the morning till noon, though of course you were welcome to stay on beyond that, albeit without the continuing services of your guide, who was being paid for two hours only. There were eight in their group, including him and Laurel, and their guide was Irina Chertoff herself, who'd taken on a new employee to free her up for these critical Saturday morning excursions. Irina (forty-five, ropy-blond hair, her figure concentrated just above her hips) had them sit in a circle in the dirt at the entrance to the preserve, while she explained the basic concept to them.

"This is not a hike," she said. "And it's not birdwatching or species counting or anything like that—and it's definitely not a way of getting from Point A to Point B. What we're going to do is shut down our conscious minds, as if we were meditating, but with the difference being that I'm encouraging you all to move, even if it's within a five-foot radius, so you can dwell in the moment and see and feel and appreciate the ordinary, the natural...