Inside Outside

I’m currently about halfway through the novel Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy. The book has me wondering if there is anywhere in nature that I feel especially attached to, enough to write about it for two hundred plus pages. McConaghy’s book takes place on an island halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica and the landscape comes through on every page. Freezing rain, wind that screams in your ears, everywhere the ocean, and rocks and tall grass and mobs of penguins and seals.

I grew up in a working class suburb in a little ranch house with an above ground pool and a vegetable garden my dad kept. At the edge of our back yard, there was a slope down to a creek with a hill covered in large rocks. At the time, I thought of it as a cliff but I know now that it was a modest incline at best. Sometimes we would climb on those rocks and collect the discarded snake skins we would find there. It might be more accurate to say that my brother would do this. I was probably in the house with a book.

Although I remember climbing trees and watching ants, like any kid. But the closest I came to being outdoorsy were the years when my son was small and I wanted to get him out of the house. Just because I preferred to sit inside and read didn’t mean I wouldn’t try to offer him more. And I’m so glad he brought me outside during those years, so happy I didn’t miss that. Because of Atlas, I bought snow pants and proper boots and learned to appreciate the value of a puddle, a good net for collecting river rocks, the mystery of praying mantis babies, tadpoles, a good snowstorm.

The local home school community where I taught writing workshops introduced us to the Salmon River in Colchester, CT and we went every summer, sometimes alone, sometimes in a pack with other mothers and their kids. I still miss it, especially when summer is winding down like it is now. I don’t know what keeps me from going back to visit. We spent many long summer days there, turning over rocks to see what might lie beneath, dipping our hands and feet into the always cool clear water.

During covid, Atlas and I went on hikes together, a regular habit that made me forget what was going on in the world. We were on a trail somewhere during that endless summer of 2020 when we accidentally spooked a deer who had been silently standing near us although we never saw her until she fled. In my memory, I come face to face with her, maybe only a foot apart, and we make eye contact before she leaps over the foliage, her white tail a blur through the trees.

And then there is the time we’ve spent in Rhode Island, most summers during his childhood, always visiting Beaver Tail State Park multiple times. One year, Atlas said to me and my husband before we were leaving at the end of our stay, “Hey guys, just take a moment to take in the beauty before we leave, okay?” And so we did.

I hope you are taking a moment to find beauty in the outside part of the world right now. Thank you for reading.