When Henry David Thoreau decided to go live in nature, the philosopher said he did so because he wanted to live deliberately. “There I understood that nature does not give lessons: it simply returns you to yourself,” he wrote in his book 'Walden'. Something similar happened to Sara Moreno Martínez.
In an interview for the local newspaper Soria Noticias, Moreno explained his particular trip to nature. She lived in Madrid and had been working in radiology for 20 years, but the idea of going to live in a town surrounded by nature was always on her mind. She's not the only one. In Madrid, municipalities with less than 2,500 residents have increased their population by 16% since 2019 according to data presented by El País and more and more people, faced with the impossibility of paying rent in large cities (not to mention buying a house in them), are opting for a house in emptied Spain.
From living in Madrid to doing so surrounded by nature
In Moreno's case, she and her family were clear that when their children grew up, they did not want to live in the capital. “When my first child was born, the pandemic arrived, so we had to wait a little to start this new adventure,” he explained. When their second child was born, a couple of years later, the family decided to take the step, but that adventure did not include a business in Vinuesa, the town in Soria where they moved, but it was a life project for which they took a risk.
“The hospital was always going to be there, I could always go back. But I had to try to do something else to get the life I wanted,” he said. And so not only his new life but his new job was born. Sara Moreno is a botanical jeweler, although she states that when she started, she had no idea about this discipline, but she did realize that she lived surrounded by nature that she could take advantage of.
Self-taught, and making good use of everything you can learn on the internet today, Moreno trained and began experimenting with resin. “I saw that people took things from the forest and I thought it would be nice to be able to keep them. That you could take a little piece of the forest with you,” he explained. Through trial and error, he made the idea in his head work. The good thing about the towns is that the people are willing to help you, as the artisan explains, “they give you ideas, they tell you things and they give you a hand,” so that community helped create what is today Bosques de Bolsillo, a botanical jewelry and workshops project with which Moreno makes a living.
Instagram @bosquesdebolsillo
“The most complicated thing has been finding the balance between the time you need for the business to move forward, the children and the house,” explained Moreno. And life in a town is not always easy even though social networks idealize that way of life. “We are alone here, we don't have family nearby so they can stay with the children. In the end, you have to find time to work and there are times when it is difficult to get to everything,” he said.
The idea of Moreno and his family was not to get rich, far from it. It was living with another rhythm and in another environment. “For me, the important thing is to have found a way to be with my children 24 hours a day, to work from home and to learn all together,” he stated. “This is life and it is what I have wanted to have,” she says, and her work in a hospital in Madrid is now a thing of the past because, as she herself explains, “I wanted to have the life that I had always dreamed of and I think this one surpasses it.” Their bravery may be the sign you need to follow the same path.
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