The wild nature has a vast integrity to it. It means to establish one's territory, to find one's pack, to be in one's body with certainty and pride regardless of the body's gifts and limitations, to speak and act in one's own behalf, to be aware, alert, to draw on the innate feminine powers of intuition and sensing, to come into one's cycles, to find what one belongs to, to rise with dignity, to retain as much consciousness as possible. -Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With The Wolves, Singing Over The Bones, P10.

One of my own stray childhood fears had been to wonder what a whale might feel like had it been born and bred in captivity, then released into the wild-into its ancestral sea-its limited world instantly blowing up when cast into the unknowable depths, seeing strange fish and tasting new waters, not even having a concept of depth, not knowing the language of any whale pods it might meet. It was my fear of a world that would expand suddenly, violently, and without rules or laws: bubbles and seaweed and storms and frightening volumes of dark blue that never end

A brick and a blanket could be used as characters in a story full of clever dialogue, such as:
Brick: I checked everywhere, and it’s not where I last left it. Did you touch my penis sandwich?
Blanket: What? Eww no, why would I touch your penis sandwich?
Brick: Well, would it make you more comfortable if I put on some condiments and rolled on a condom?
Blanket: Dude, or lady, whatever you are. I’m not gay—or straight. I’m not even bisexual. I’m a blanket, and I’m asexual. I’m also not hungry now.

You could be David's friend too". She glanced at Tamani when he said nothing. He was frowning. "The two of you really have a lot in common, and we're all in this together".He shook his head. "It wouldn't work"."Why not? He's a nice guy. And it would do you good to have some human friends", she said hinting at what she suspected was the root of the problem. "It's not that", Tamani said, gesturing vaguely with one hand."Then why?" Laurel asked, exasperated."I just don't want to cosy up to the guy whose girl I have every intention of stealing

A brick could have been used as a father figure in place of my dad when I was growing up, because a brick may be dumb, but at least it isn’t dumb and interfering in its absence. By not being a part of my life, my dad became a big part of my life, because my thoughts were influenced by his image and infused with fantasy as I attempted to alter the reality that he wanted little to do with me. And what else would you call not wanting to be a part of your son’s life but dumb? So this Father’s Day, I’m drinking to the dad I never had—a brick. 


A brick could be attached to a parachute and tossed out of an airplane, to test if it opens up properly. Well, the good news is the parachute worked as planned, but the bad news is the only other parachute on board is strapped to my back, and I’m afraid you’re going to have to return to your seat, buckle up, and assume the crash position. And while it may not be as useful as a functioning parachute, here’s a Rosary to aid you in your prayers. Also, before I jump out of the plane, I just remembered that I owe you a lot of money. Can I write you a check?


It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B. It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.

Tonight, I decided to take a stroll down to my local liquor store. Maybe I’ll find a refreshment to wash down this full moon. I hate showing up & the clerk fucking knows my name, perhaps because I’m a regular. Anyways got my shit, left…barely covering the tax. Took the long way home; to get away from that haunting typewriter. Sat down at some park bench, as I started to open my poison; A memory rushed into me. A empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s under the Christmas tree. I thought my dad would want another drink, so started to pour my bottle into the dirt & cried.

Her beauty must have been exhausting and not to mention troublesome. Glitter swiftly made it's way into the vibrant strands that graced her lavish eyelashes. Each blink, each pressing moment, time seemed to have stopped and I felt as if, her charm could fill an entire room and with every set of eyes locked onto her, somehow the glare of her shimmering wet lipgloss could take care of everyones problems. That as soon as her heavenly music flowed through their wine glasses, that they too were apart of something such bigger, much grander. I believed, when I stood beside her; I became more handsome.

A brick could be used as gift for the man who has everything. Here’s a tip: that man doesn’t have everything, because I just stole his wallet. But I can’t very well give him a gift of something I’ve just grifted. So while he’s pondering the meaning of the brick as a present, I’m off spending his money. It’s win-win for both of us. And by both of us I mean me and you, not me and him, because naturally you’ll be my accomplice, my partner, and as such you’re entitled to half. Of half. But since I’m paying you 25%, you’re paying for dinner. 


Through the miracle of science, or divine intervention, a brick could be made soft, like Jell-O, and a blanket could be made rigid, like the laws regarding the speed limit, as interpreted by the cop who pulled me over last night. Come on, Officer Dogood—97 in a 30 mile an hour zone is not egregious. It’s not like I was speeding with no lights on while wearing a blindfold and blasting Lady Gaga from my radio to mask the sound of pounding fists from a kidnapping victim I had tied up in my trunk. Now that is something that would merit a stiff penalty, like a parking ticket, or maybe a stern warning. 


In the same way that the picturesque designers were always careful to include some reminder of our mortality in their gardens -- a ruin, sometimes even a dead tree -- the act of leaving parts of the garden untended, and calling attention to its margins, seems to undermine any pretense to perfect power or wisdom on the part of the gardener. The margins of our gardens can be tropes too, but figures of irony rather than transcendence -- antidotes, in fact, to our hubris. It may be in the margins of our gardens that we can discover fresh ways to bring our aesthetics and our ethics about the land into some meaningful alignment.

Half of me is filled with bursting words and half of me is painfully shy. I crave solitude yet also crave people. I want to pour life and love into everything yet also nurture my self-care and go gently. I want to live within the rush of primal, intuitive decision, yet also wish to sit and contemplate. This is the messiness of life - that we all carry multitudes, so must sit with the shifts. We are complicated creatures, and ultimately, the balance comes from this understanding. Be water. Flowing, flexible and soft. Subtly powerful and open. Wild and serene. Able to accept all changes, yet still led by the pull of steady tides. It is enough.

At some point, one asks, "Toward what end is my life lived?" A great freedom comes from being able to answer that question. A sleeper can be decoyed out of bed by the sheer beauty of dawn on the open seas. Part of my job, as I see it, is to allow that to happen. Sleepers like me need at some point to rise and take their turn on morning watch for the sake of the planet, but also for their own sake, for the enrichment of their lives. From the deserts of Namibia to the razor-backed Himalayas, there are wonderful creatures that have roamed the Earth much longer than we, creatures that not only are worthy of our respect but could teach us about ourselves.

Despite all their flaws, zoos wake us up. They invite us to step outside our most basic assumptions. Offered for our contemplation, the animals remind us of nature’s impossibly varied schemes for survival, all the strategies that species rely upon for courtship and mating and protecting the young and establishing dominance and hunting for something to eat and avoiding being eaten. On a good day, zoos shake people into recognizing the manifold possibilities of existence, what it’s like to walk across the Earth, or swim in its oceans of fly above its forests—even though most animals on display will never have the chance to do any of those things again, at least not in the wild.