It had only to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles for no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.
Cheryl Strayed, Wild: from Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail
I finally finished Wild last night. The beginning and the middle of the memoir had the most impact on me. There were passages in the book I literally found painful to read. Strayed's loneliness...her aloneness... gripped me page after page. I could feel it. Once she began to reap the rewards of her pilgrimage, I found myself awed by her strength and courage. We all have wounds from losses, regrets, wrongs and hardships. We all have the power to heal them too. Scars fade over time, but hopefully the lessons learned in enduring them continue to inform us about how to live our one wild and precious life today, tomorrow and every day after. I was inspired by Wild. Moved not to take my own 1100 mile sojourn, but to find my inner warrior and stay the ever changing often challenging course.
Tonight I started to read Where the Red Fern Grows. It's T. Bone's favorite novel. He reads it at least once a year and he's been asking me to read it just once in my lifetime. I'm guilty from saying soon for so long. Well, not any more.
2 comments:
I am intrigued. The words in the beginning of this post grabbed me. This book will go on my list of to-reads.
Wow.
Thank you for sharing this.
To-read for sure Summer. It's worth reading particularly for women who have sadly lost their mothers. I never questioned how her world could come so undone or how she could feel so alone because I have been there.
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