Published April 25. 2026 09:05AM
“Touch grass.” I’ve been seeing this phrase pop up everywhere lately, from the corners of the internet that I peruse to my kids’ vocabulary.
While the kids tend to use it as a synonym for “reality check” or to unplug from devices for a while, for me, it takes me back to the movie “Pretty Woman,” where Richard Gere starts to undergo his dramatic transformation into a human being by walking barefoot in the park.
Or, to everyone’s favorite Christmas movie, “Die Hard,” where Bruce Willis copes with his flight-phobia by “making fists with his toes in the carpet.” Although a convenient plot device, the “grounding” method wasn’t lost on me.
As far as disconnecting from devices and getting back to nature, since transitioning to my new job in January, I have been working remotely, and after hours and hours spent on screens, I frequently use my 10-minute stretch breaks to literally walk outside and stand in the sunshine.
Spring has brought lots of opportunities to touch grass and dig in the dirt. It is no coincidence that my mental health is feeling better these days. G is always happiest when he is up to his elbows in something, whether it’s dirt, or ducks or fishing, and E has caught the “we can grow pretty flowers” bug as well, so getting the two of them to “touch grass,” isn’t too hard.
Humans were meant to coexist with nature, and yet we seem determined to destroy it in favor of concrete jungles and harvesting Earth’s resources to their, and most likely our, bitter end. It has been a distressing few weeks as the United States Forest Service has been systemically dismantled, steps have been taken to lift mining restrictions on the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, and data center construction projects are suddenly popping up on the agendas of many of our local advisory board meetings.
At the very best, our local boards are operating as they should, providing forums for vigorous protest as large corporations try to come in and buy up large tracts of land for undisclosed purposes. At the very worst, citizens are finding out after the fact about back-door deals that have been allowed to proceed.
You would think that an area that dealt firsthand with the years and years of ongoing reclamation projects that helped repair a century of practically unregulated mining practices would be more careful about how we treat our local resources.
We are an area that values our recreational areas, and almost every time I take G fishing somewhere where we encounter “old-timers” we are sure to hear stories of all the “cricks” that they weren’t able to fish in when they were younger because of the “yellow boy.” Local politicians are always happy to crow about the success of a reclamation project, but just as happy to facilitate signing over more of our land to big business to “bring jobs” to the region.
Don’t get me wrong, we certainly do need jobs, but these data centers will never provide employment that comes anywhere near the drain they put on the local infrastructure and resources. As we drove by several large, recently constructed warehouses recently, G observed that they were just full of stuff, not full of jobs, and as more and more automation happens, there will be fewer people working in them in the long run.
Of course, there are those who will argue with me. My remote job relies on me having the ability to network with the entire world via the internet. I don’t take that for granted, but I know it requires resources I have little understanding of. The same technology that allows me to both work and touch enough grass to keep me sane is also the same technology that is going to make a lot of grass disappear.
I believe that if we have the capability to develop technology to do things on a grander scale, we should also be able to develop the corresponding technology to help save our environment at the same time. Maybe it will take a little longer, or be a little more expensive, but in the end, isn’t it worth it?
Liz Pinkey’s column appears on Saturdays in the Times News
