Home > Work > Going Feral: Field Notes on Wonder and Wanderlust
1 " Was I hiding from reality, on the outside looking in? Or, was I living my reality, on the outside looking out? "
― Heather Durham , Going Feral: Field Notes on Wonder and Wanderlust
2 " Sometimes, I am the beast in the darkness. Sometimes, I am the ghost. "
3 " I think I might like to grow thorns. Tough spines that barb anyone who grabs at me, tries to take from me, moves toward me any way other than delicately. Or thick boney horns I can point in front of me to shield the soft, sensitive parts. Not cruel, protected. "
4 " Wilderness is the void that we fill with paradise or prison, heaven or hell. A valley we can flow through or struggle against. Maybe one day I would learn how to live in the in-between place called home. "
5 " It would have been so easy, barely a step down off the low roof onto me, teeth sunk into my neck and the end of me. "
6 " Maybe you were never actually lonely for other people. All along, maybe you were lonely for the earth. "
7 " This something sparked on a little island off the rocky coast of Maine would grow from a twinge to a hunger to a need you would spend years, a decade, a lifetime pursuing. "
8 " Do you belong to the city or the wilds? Are you human or animal? Are you sane or lunatic? Both? Neither? Yes. "
9 " I was starting to realize that just living simply, even deliberately, is not going wild. "
10 " That little owl with a call as steady as my heartbeat was telling anyone who would listen, ‘I am here.’ We were listening. We’re listening still. "
11 " I needed pain; I needed blood. Judge me if you want, but I’m talking about my own body. My own catharsis. About marking myself with beauty instead of ugliness. "
12 " My mind flits around like that, darts and dives and twitches at times, and other times perches immobile, faintly ruffling in the breeze. "
13 " In reaching for stone, wood, water, and feather, I found my own edges softening, scars fading. "
14 " Those times in life when a mask falls away and everything makes sense, even if just for a moment, you pay attention. Sometimes they involve an actual blindfold. "