Wilderness

A few summers ago one of my many roommates and I were sitting in the kitchen of our New Hampshire cabin and discussing how to go about impressing self-important owners of a fair-trade coffee shop in order to procure some gainful employment there.  If you have ever met self-important owners of a fair-trade coffee shop (especially one near an Ivy League) then you can probably imagine the direction this conversation took.  One of the questions on her application demanded that the potential employee identify his or her "favorite three syllable word."  I'm not kidding.  It was a no-brainer answer for my roommate- or-gan-ic- duh.  Beat that hipster Ivy-Leaguers.

The question led to a further pondering of favorite words, in general, and what those words mean. Think big- the ideas captured and conveyed in some single words are more powerful than any treatise of words in the world.

My favorite word is 'wilderness.'  I adore that word.  I am enraptured by that word.  I identify with that word- I used to use that word to describe myself.  It has been some time since I have been able to do that, but it was a part of me once, a strength that sat in the core of my being and sustained a part of my spirit that was, to be redundant, wild; the part of my spirit that was singularly unique, impossible, and entirely untouchable.

Wilderness; deep, dark, threatening, angry wilderness.  The untamable other.  The passion!  The power!

I have loved it for so long, I think, because it's presence is permanent.  To move onto a much more esoteric plane- regardless of the road humanity takes, wilderness is a haunting, hunting thing that follows us; traces our movements from some inky place in the dense shadows.  It stays on the periphery, but it is there always.  It's constancy is like a gift, in my mind.

In this context, wilderness is a measure of honesty- confronting it is an act of bravery.