Where the Wildness Is

A suburban boy, who fell in love with wild expansive nature, went to school to study it, spent every free moment immersed in it, wants to love and learn and live and breathe it is now deprived of it in a new city. But am I deprived, or am I just not paying attention?

I have gone to great lengths to experience wildness. I’ve driven across the US, hiked for days in Central America, and sacrificed time, money, comfort, and relationships all to feel wildness on my skin and in my soul.

By wildness I do not mean nature devoid of human impact. That would disregard the lives of the people who lived on the land I traveled to and their relationship to it before people who looked like me came and stole it. That would also ignore the wicked nature of the climate crisis our society has caused.

No, when I say wildness, I mean the feeling of wonder when watching a song bird build its nest or the joy when it sings. The feeling of smallness when seeing a moose or a bear or a mountain or a river. The peace of movement and the exhilaration of discovery. I’m talking about the ecstasy of tree bark, the tickle of leaves, the grit of dirt, the joy of life and all that supports it.

Can you smell it? Have you felt it?

I need to scratch the itch. Touch, hear, and feel life happening. I have missed wildness in a city where the surroundings are oh so concrete and mineral. Where there is plenty of life but of a different kind. Life feels mechanical here. With rigid boundaries. Without wildness.

However, I’m starting to remember something different: flashes of pointed wings slicing through the air, a kinked neck, puff of feathers, excitement and joy and wonder. I recently found an old piece of writing from college exploring what a specific peregrine falcon meant to me and to the city of Burlington, VT. I was somehow wiser then. I knew I didn’t need to go to great lengths in search of wildness. I just had to pay attention.

The piece was about a peregrine falcon who had decided to frequent the water tower on the University of Vermont’s campus. I sat with it day after day. Between classes I would check to see if Perry was there. When I could I brought a blanket, my binoculars, a notebook, and my camera and sat on a curb between the biology building and a parking lot. I took thousands of pictures and diligently documented Perry’s habits and my own thoughts. I felt honored to be there and experience his wildness.

When I think about it now, it reminds me that wildness does not have to be sought out. It just needs to be noticed.

A red-tailed hawk bathing in a puddle after a rain. A house sparrow building its nest in a crack. Daffodils popping, geese mating, fish jumping, trees leafing out, life is doing its best out there, and I want to see it!

I will still go to great lengths to scratch the nature itch, but now I can feel wildness whenever I want with a little bit of focus, a touch of intention, and a hefty dose of enthusiasm.