I'm Marie Catherine Dobey, and we’re here in my home with Catie, Harley, and Toby. This is one of my favorite subjects, near and dear to my heart, of course, and I could go literally all day. You know, I'm 61, I still collect shells and pine cones and leaves and my husband laughs at me–John laughs at me all the time–that I see these beautiful trees and I greet them and scream and holler in joy, like it's a long last friend. 

And then my health challenges–Jesus Christ–you get hit by a truck with a cancer diagnosis. I left college, had my treatment, survived, whole thing, get back to college and go, “How do I fit in this world now…after what I've seen? I can't relate to any of the college students because all they want to do is party and date and drink up a storm, and I'm like, “I almost died.” I just remember thinking, “This is all too much.” And I got on my bike, and I just rode. I rode 25 miles out into the fields. I felt big and sorry for myself, but I just rode out all my emotions, and I took in the beautiful–it was afternoon, and I would watch the sun. The leaves were beautiful. I'll just never forget that day. 

And then when I had my chemo, gosh, you know, you can't eat, you can't sleep. I turned to music and nature and I would go outside, and I would love to see the flickers. I think music is an expression of nature. Like, I've often thought an oboe speaks of pine cones and conifers and their growth. And a trombone represents more of what a mountain is like. Piano to me is a waterfall, a river, a lapping beach. Violins are birds; flutes are birds. Now that I've seen the eagles in the wild, when they dive, they're like violins. And when they go down to the ocean or the river and they snatch out a salmon, it's like the big, ginormous mallets and drums that they have. It's very magical and musical in my opinion. 

You're drunk with the joy of nature, you know, to be immersed in that feeling all the time. It was like falling in love with somebody 10 times over, and there's no break. I guess the cool thing about nature is that it'll continue to surprise you. Just when you think you saw the most beautiful thing in the world–I'll never say that. I'm sure a more beautiful thing is out there in my future. That's a pretty cool thought, I think.