It’s raining this campervan morning, pouring down. It’s been a good while since we had rain, well as far as I can remember. A retreat to the van this morning, brief snatches of nature before being surrounded by the beating rhythm of rainfall on the roof and walls. Water sliding down windows, playing on rooftop and skylights. The light somewhat duller than outside. Heavy cloud , dampness and puddles is the order of the morning. A hint of suburban wildness, if there is such a thing. Jay Griffiths in her wonderful book writes that wild things have inherent grace and that “ Life itself is a state of Grace: at the heart of it all is this primaeval comedy “. A sense this morning of experiences of the suburban wildness. Thoreau in Walden comments that we all need the “ Tonic of wildness “ and goes on in later writings to write that all good things are wild and free. I have a sense that there is an itch and a need to travel again, sample wildness and be in nature. The wonderful John Muir wrote :
“ Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity”.
A good dose of wildness will perhaps do the world some good not just me. I am reflecting on what this wildness is about this morning. This sense of being as Muir writes ‘Over civilised’. A sense of being frustrated with being ‘Over civilised’. I feel that part of it is also summed up by Muir when he writes:
“The world's big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”
Maybe driven by the conversations with friends around their loss and grief. A positive from such sharings, the desire for wildness. Lovely days people.
“ This is what it means to become wild again: it’s to peel back the niceties of society. I have had too many of these: the niceties. I have become one myself: a person like a platitude, pleasing and flat.” Sondra Charbadze.
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