10 Comments

Lovely, Hannah, You don't have to make that horrile 20 something hour flight to the wilds of another continent, over even carbon footprint across to 'where the skies are not cloudy all day.

A 'Wanderer' in Connecticut.

Expand full comment

Thanks. ❤️ If the pandemic can be said to have any gifts, I guess I would count that as one of them for me -- its insistence on stopping & observing what was here around me right now, rather than always reaching out to something foreign and “exotic.”

Expand full comment

That was a joy to read and read again. Thank you.

Expand full comment

Thanks you so much. ❤️

Expand full comment

Absolutely loved this! :-D

Expand full comment

Thank you, Johnny!

Expand full comment

You are much more adventurous than I, and you seem to need to be in these spaces. I get it, for a while (until I got stuck in that mud!) I felt that any weekend I wasn’t gallivanting into the Pine Barrens was a wasted one. I remember one time I hiked to a high bluff in the Wyanokies, small rocky mounts in the north of NJ, and I felt like I had triumphed and found something few knew. And then a retiree silently appeared behind me, with a cloth map of the trails, and we talked about how he’d hiked all the Presidents in New England. And I realized I have always felt like an alien exploring within human consciousness; it was new to me, and that was enough.

Expand full comment

I do feel a little compelled for some reason to push beyond a boundary line -- and I completely agree, when it's new to you, that's plenty. That's really the most important boundary line to explore, or at least the one I think is most interesting -- the lines of one's own consciousness. (Oh, and the mud is a great story.)

Expand full comment

I love the image of you wedging yourself in and out of these spaces. We need to do more of this, don't we? But it's also important to remember the First Rule of Animal Spaces: remember, you are an animal too! I've been too safe in my Wanderfinding lately; I need to get out in the grubby, and soon.

Expand full comment

Thanks, Chris! And I love your reminder that we are animals too -- it's easy to forget. I guess that's part of why I like doing this kind of thing, though grubby is right -- I had dirt and a yellow flower in my hair that I didn't discover until I washed my hair in Boston at the end of the day. Hope you have time & opportunity to get out in the dirt yourself soon.

Expand full comment