Summer has finally arrived. The air is warm and soft and everywhere I look there is green. Foliage has exploded in such profusion that leafy boughs hang over the back roads as we drive along, forming a lush canopy above our heads. It’s like living on the edge of a jungle. Perfectly manicured gardens dotting the landscape evoke order and control, but I can feel the forests breathing and the undergrowth straining in wild abandon.
No matter how seduced I am by the heat, by the smell of honeysuckle or the delicate flight pattern of butterflies, any lull of contentment is fleeting. Nature’s powerful energy is pulsing almost violently beneath the surface, and I plug into it like a battery.
I thought domesticity would tame some of the wild out of me, that motherhood and age would lessen my passion. But many days I still feel as if I have a thin skin of human covering the real creature, and I am deafened by the heartbeat of the universe pounding in my veins. The price for sensation is often isolation.
As my children begin their adult lives, they too hear the call of the wild and are drawn to the elements. One to rock, which he communes with in order to scale and conquer his fears, and another to water, where she is healing both herself and coral forests dying under the sea.
Although I worry their choices will invite undue solitude, I am grateful they feel such a connection to the natural world. They will be able to recharge when necessary, and have power enough to light the darker times ahead.
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