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plus, there were a lot of bugs. sarah hated bugs.
reacquainting myself with the outdoors wasn’t as easy
as grabbing coffee with an old childhood friend. It began
as a series of awkward first dates, me nervous and intimi-
dated and anxious to hide my bad habits and wasteful past.
The trust between us was a bit wilted at first. I was wary of
the red rash that read like braille on my arm, raised from
hours of dangling on the branches of a mangled willow; it
was wary of my intentions, hoping they weren’t only self-
serving, hoping there remained some remnant of childhood
love. but it took me unquestioningly as I was, and I learned
to do the same. I learned to love the unconventional beauty
in a slug, or in the mud—the beauty that doesn’t make post-
cards. and once I relaxed, the entire world that I had aban-
doned welcomed me with arms wide and smile warm. My
love for the mountains and trees began as a frantic attempt
to escape the belief that I would never be the heroine of my
own story—but it turned into a head-over-heels connection,
passion, a calling. and it was mine.
a cool august morning in the summer after I gradu-
ated high school, I opened my eyes to the arched dome of
a two-person tent, feeling damp and cramped from a night
of camping by lake kachees with nina and Tani. a testa-
ment to the fact that some things never change, they were
still zonked in the same sleeping positions they maintained
from our sixth grade sleepovers—Tani curled into a ball and
Nina’s arms and legs flailed across the expanse of the tent,
mouth catching flies.
I slipped on some dry clothes and laced up my sneak-
ers, the tent zipper calling into a silent morning like a blue
0 blue moon
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