The weirdness of being

This morning I went for a walk after shovelling my driveway.  Not much snow coming down, more the little pellet-type snow than flakes, but the temperature is pretty nice for February.  Near my house there is a large man-made pond that's actually more of a marsh; well, there's a kind of pond in the middle but it's thickly surrounded by grasses and reeds.  It's beautiful in the summer when the birds all hang out together in there and sing to one another.  But it's just as beautiful in the winter, with everything dusted white from the snow. I walked along the path that's alongside this marshy pond, taking in the fresh air, the snow falling on my hat, the occasional sound of a bird.  The path ends where it meets a fairly busy four-lane road, so once I got to the road, I turned around intending to head back home.  But I paused; I wasn't quite ready to end my outdoors-time yet.  It really was very nice outside, and I wanted to just take it all in a little longer.  To my immediate right, on a small slope of a hill that led up and away from the path, was a grouping of three pine trees, with a small space in their centre.  A perfect space for sitting, protected from any wind.  I climbed the few steps up the hill and nestled myself cozily amongst the trees, looking back out over the marsh. I sat and gazed over the swaying grasses, watching the snow fall and listening to the sound of the breeze going through the tops of the trees (I tried to pay little attention to the cars driving by on the nearby road).  As I sat there enjoying the quiet of the marsh, I thought to myself how it would likely startle someone as well as puzzle them if they should walk by and see a woman sitting in the snow amongst the trees, just sitting.  And sure enough, just moments after that a man came along walking his dog, a Boxer with a coat-of-many-colours shawl draped over his back.  Before he saw me, I said hello so as not to startle him or creep him out should he have caught a glimpse of me; I wasn't so sheltered that I was invisible by any stretch.  We exchanged a bit of conversation about what a beautiful day it was before he carried on with his walk. But I sure felt that if it were me walking along the path, and I'd stumbled across a person - man or woman - sitting where I was - just sitting, not doing anything - that I would definitely have thought it odd. Which is odd, isn't it? I mean, who in our society, in the middle of suburbia, stops and sits in the snow just to be, just to observe her surroundings and enjoy nature?   Or is it more odd that we don't do such things?  That we go about the hustle and bustle of our days without ever stopping to enjoy the beauty that surrounds us, the earth that sustains us?  Why has it become so weird just to be?