Last running post was about the movie Wild; this post is about staying wild, only indirectly related.
During my cold, foggy run today, I thought about something that author Virginia Arthur wrote in our Google+ group today, “Stay Wild.” Virginia, a field biologist, wrote Birdbrain, a novel about a woman and her experiences with birding and other nature. Linda said that it’s a weird ass time to be alive and to stay wild. I immediately smiled.
When writing my own novel, Back to the Garden, under pen name Clara Hume, a major theme in the book was being wild. The main character is generally immersed in nature–getting dirty and mangled in the outdoors with burrs in her hair and scars on her body. The first part of the book refers to a wilder world, and it’s meant in a positive way.
In the early 80s, during the time Virginia’s book takes place, we heard “Stay golden” or “Stay golden, Ponyboy,” a famous line from The Outsiders.
On my run today, though still sporting an on/off knee injury, which reduced my run to two miles, I thought of being wild and golden. What is wild? Gary Snyder wrote “Practice of the Wild”, a collective of essays, which I wrote a review on a long time ago.
We should stay wild and stay golden, don’t you think?
With each run I dream of a time when I’m not so limited during the week and can get out into the true wild on the weekend. It’s sort of hard with this weather, which can be icy in the morning, or downright muddy and dangerous to run in, but we’re scouting out places. In the meantime this weekend we’re hoping also to do some snowshoeing at Mount Seymour, which is finally open with snow.
