Before the storm hit the East, we took a hike to see a gorgeous stand of beech in the woods up in Tucker. I’ve been thinking about why I feel a need to get outdoors, into natural areas. Everyone must feel that to some extent, but it’s almost like hunger to me. I’m afraid I’m not much fun to be around if I don’t get out outside regularly.
Jim Harrison said that the wild can
draw away your poisons to the point that your natural curiosity takes over and ‘you,’ the accumulation of wounds and concomitant despair, no longer exist. The immediate world for hours at a time becomes quite beyond self-consciousness.
Maybe that’s it. I just needed to get outdoors.
The snow fell south of us. It covered Columbus, where generations of infantrymen trained; Macon, where the mound builders and the Allman Brothers hung out; and Milledgeville, where Flannery O’Connor tended chickens and peacocks. At Stone Mountain, it was cold but dry.
• Source: Jim Harrison, Off to the Side; New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2002, p. 20.
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