The wilderness, Bryan Mealer writes, taught me how to be alone in the universe; to find comfort in silence
For the past five years, I’ve taken my kids camping once a month. On Fridays I load our tent and gear and we drive to a nearby state park, where we fish and swim the rivers, build forts in the trees, and cook our meals over the fire. Aside from the occasional rain or freezing temperatures, there’s nothing rugged about it. For my kids, the trips have become paramount, anticipated events. And for me, they’ve become my very grip on sanity in this age of toxic politics, division and battering news cycles.
I started these trips out of an almost primal response to something not right within me. It was like when I first started running. Twelve years ago, wrestling with depression and trying to kick some bad habits, I felt a sudden panicked urgency come over me one night, as if my better self was trying to escape the body that I’d given it. This was in Providence, Rhode Island, in January. Despite an ice storm blowing outside, I put on a pair of old sneakers and ran into the frozen night until my lungs burned and I was calm. I’ve never stopped running.
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2ZKd9Bf
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