The whispering woods

“The mountains are calling and I must go.” — John Muir

In a recent writing exercise I do with my students, I compiled a list of words or phrases that comprise my identity. We are to strive for nouns, rather than adjectives or adverbs that get to be more subjective. What are the nouns that describe who I am?

woman. mother. wife. daughter. writer. journalist. teacher. editor. book reader. 80s kid. movie buff. horror fan. volunteer. baker. singer. former hiker. disabled.

You’ll note right away that I broke my own rules: one of those isn’t a noun. It also didn’t escape my notice that by reflex, I began by listing myself in relationship to others, but that’s a reflection for another day.

We were next to choose one of those and expound on it, and the one that caught my eye this time — of all the times I’ve done this exercise — was “former hiker.”

I loved to hike. It was my escape during my first marriage, to take a weekend and disappear into the woods with a backpack and ultralight tent. It was solitary and sometimes lonely, but it was also peaceful in a way that my life simply was not as an unhappy wife, overworked reporter and nervous mother. My coworkers were often astounded at this habit — “You mean your husband lets you go into the woods alone?” asked one well-meaning fellow, and I let him know what I thought about the concept of my husband “letting” me do anything.

When I got divorced and became a single mother, I continued hiking on weekends when…