Day 13: Love Letters to the Wild
Who (or what) has shaped your love for nature?
Hey there, Heroine,
Few of us fall in love with the wild in a vacuum. Someone—or something—led us here.
Your prompt for Day 13:
Reflect on a person, place, or experience that inspired your love of the outdoors. Write about it.
Maybe it was a grandparent who took you on your first camping trip. A childhood spent climbing trees until the streetlights came on. A book that made you long for wide-open spaces. Or maybe your love for nature came later in life, surprising you when you needed it most.
Whatever it was, let yourself revisit that moment or person. How did they shape the way you see the wild today? What would you say to them if you could?
Share your reflection in the comments or on Substack Notes, and tag it with #LoveTheWild. I’d love to hear what (or who) first made you fall for the great outdoors.
With gratitude for the ones who showed us the way,
Jill
My first memories of being in the wild are of being on a lake. My grandparents had a cottage on Houghton Lake, and my uncle bought and sold a cottage every few years, so I got to experience a variety of Michigan's inland lakes, playing on little beaches, finding freshwater clam shells to decorate my sand castles, swimming off docks, and going for early morning fishing trips with my dad and cousins. Not really "wild," but that's when I began to appreciate the beauty of our lakes.
When I was 12, my parents bought a sailboat that was big enough to sleep on overnight, and that's when our lake adventures began to enter the wild. There is nothing like sleeping in the cockpit of a boat, looking up at the stars, seeing the occasional meteor, or display of aurora borealis, hearing the lapping of the water against the hull, or watching the mist burn off the lake as you sip your morning hot cocoa. That boat afforded us so many opportunities to see places most people have never heard of, and also taught me how to make do without many creature comforts, which has been helpful as I became a hiker and backpacker.
My dad was always at the center of these outdoor adventures--the planner, the fixer, the one who had the idea in the first place. Now that I'm older, I realize that many of the breathtaking experiences I had as a kid, seeing amazing winter scenes while cross-country skiing in Canada, or anchoring out in natural harbors in the North Channel, and taking the dinghy to shore to grill dinner on a boulder, were a result of his desire to spend time in these gorgeous places. We were lucky to get to come along for the ride. Not only did these experiences instill a love of nature, but also the confidence that I could handle going into the wild on my own.
#lovethewild
Summers in Oklahoma were pure magic. I mostly grew up in the suburbs—first St. Louis, then Detroit—but when school let out, I was free. My grandfather’s farm (where he raised black angus cattle and wheat), just south of the Kansas border, became my whole world.
My brother and I were transformed into true free-range kids, spending long days riding horses, building forts, fishing in the pond, tearing across fields on 4-wheelers, and taking aim at the trash heap behind the tractor barn with the BB gun. Riding in the giant green John Deere as a small child was its own kind of thrill—perched on the cushy armrest while my grandfather steered up and down the rows. Sometimes he even let me steer.
But nothing compared to riding horses. I never felt more powerful as a ten-year-old girl than when I was on horseback, the strong Oklahoma wind in my face, the open prairie stretching endlessly ahead. I taught myself how to ride (with a little help from my cousins), and I fell off—hard and often. But I always got back on, just as my grandfather insisted.
To this day, when I return to that land, I can stand on the wide, flat prairie and be transported back in time. The memory rushes in—the hot sun on my skin, the dusty scent of earth and alfalfa, the hum of cicadas in the heat. And my heart nearly bursts with the fullness of it all.
#LovetheWild