Wild, Inside and Out

People ask why I go to the wild.

Why I camp, hike, backpack.

Why I go alone.

It’s not only for the views.

It’s not even for the adrenaline.

I go because the wild strips away everything that isn’t true.

Because when you’re still enough, long enough,

the birds forget you’re there—

and sometimes, they visit you. Timidly at first.

But if your energy stays quiet,

you don’t activate their flight response.

I spent my childhood in the canyons and mountains of northern Arizona—

backpacking cross-country with my family at least three times a year.

Spring, summer, fall—we lived in the backcountry.

No trail, no agenda—just the land, our gear,

and the map in my father’s mind.

Those trips taught me to carry what I need and leave the rest.

To read the sky like a mood.

To sleep comfortably on the ground.

To wake with the sun and fall asleep to the scent of ponderosa pines

and the song of crickets.

Later, when I backpacked with others, I often fell into the role of caretaker.

I’d pack the first aid kit.

Plan and cook the meals.

Lead the pack.

It wasn’t their fault.

It’s just what I did—until I realized that maybe what I actually needed

was not to carry others, but to carry myself.

So I started going alone.

At first, there was fear.

What if someone came into my camp at night?

What if a rock crushed my hand and I had to cut it off with a Swiss Army knife? (127 Hours)

What if? What if? What if?

Maybe I was lucky.

Maybe I was savvy.

Either way, none of those things happened.

But the fear was real.

And it took years of practice to undo it.

And then came the summer of 2023.

I went into the wilderness for five days, alone.

No food, just water.

A fast. A quest. A remembering.

I brought a few apples for when I bottomed out.

But mostly, I didn’t eat.

And I wasn’t hungry.

Because I was full of something else entirely.

Stillness.

Light.

Joy.

So why do this?

Why spend five days alone on the mountain—

on her bluffs, in her forests, beneath her sky?

Because in that kind of silence, the truth finally has room to speak.

Because I needed to return to a childhood spent unfolding into the wild.

Because when you’re still enough, long enough,

the animals forget you’re there—

and that is its own kind of magic.

I remember one morning in a high meadow.

Elk were dancing—leaping, playing, moving freely across the land.

I was sitting so quietly, so fully connected to that place,

that they didn’t startle when they finally noticed me.

They simply looked.

Then returned to their joy.

That’s what the wild does.

It shows you how to be still without disappearing.

How to belong within yourself.

It took a lifetime to return to that level of comfort.

But when I found it, I knew I was home.

The wild heals because it is gentle,

and because it is honest.

And all you have to do is show up.

Fully.

Quietly.

Truthfully.

We need wild places.

Not just for the animals.

For ourselves.

Because they remind us how to feel.

How to listen.

How to live.

So flirt with the wild.

Sleep under stars.

Sit in silence so long the birds return to your shoulder.

Let the earth open you.

You don’t have to go far.

You just have to go deep.

And then—

when you return to the world of walls and clocks,

you carry it with you.

Others start to notice.

Not in a bad way.

But they sense the change,

the difference,

and perhaps…

they’re drawn to it.

So you leave behind the hopeless flirt, and let love flow out of you.

Which is infinitely more real.

More undeniable.

Wild, Inside and Out