62 Comments

I recently read somewhere, “Trauma is not just what happens to you, it is also what didn’t.”

Your beautiful essay is rich with this duality. As a lifelong roamer of remote beaches, i recognize this kind of solitary journey. There is some comfort in facing even the darkest truths, empathy pulls one there to bear witness. Only then, having faced the worst, can honesty emerge and perhaps hope with it.

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Yes exactly. And that is a great quote

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On not meeting criteria: I'm not ashamed to say I spotted & grabbed the following from a TV music station:

"It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not." (unknown)

Learning to refuse to measure up seems to be a key aspect of growing into/discovering one's true self.

call me -- a pro-humanity partisan

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I love this piece. Featureless wildlands are glorious, but so difficult to describe. Your ability to write about the land in such a moving and graphic way is a treasure. Thank you for this.

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I’m a student who has recently come back from a solo trip to front line Ukraine. I’ve just published a new piece on my experiences and thought readers here may appreciate it. Please do see what you think. https://irongoose.substack.com/

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You told me about this magic place, it’s a gift. So is your writing. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. You capture the loss that I feel and have felt these past years. Nature is also my safe place. Lucky us.

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You just keep getting better and better. I’m meeting you all over again in a different literary space and I’m overwhelmed. Thank you.

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Thank you!

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same same

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Like that park, your writing is a place I can go to be renewed of spirit.

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I cried, Sarah. I grew up in the old forests of Washington State, and your reflections in nature resonate with that child, and the way you weave your stories nurture my still bleeding heart. Since Covid, my wonder and support I feel in the woods, and learning more about geologic time, have been a comfort to the distress of it all. I wish they weren't so sure on extracting and bombing every capital from the soils, eradicating the last vestiges of Earth's holiness still standing from climate change.

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I love your work. This is such great read on a quiet morning.

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Sarah, this piece is brilliant. I am so moved. Thank you.

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Thanks Mollie! Nice to see you here

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Beautiful writing beautiful photos I love fall and my walks in my park every day with my black lab . My local park is where teddy Roosevelt as a child learned his love for nature in the summers he spent in New Jersey . Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us . I look forward to these wonderings so much I learn from you with each and every post .

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Hello Sarah,

Thank you for the fine and toilsome work you’ve given me who can see and hear Truth through your creations.

You bolstered me through dark times, gave me hope through dreadful hours, kept me steady whilst cortisol raged.

Your bravery comforts me and makes me less afraid.

And by your being I too venture forth for Freedom, Truth, and Love.

You are a blessing to this precious nation, the world and Life itself.

I am grateful that through you, Loving Kindness and Freedom shall shroud Equality and increase.

You are a stand-up person, a mensch, a guiding light. You are the most.

With adoration,

Dave

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Sarah love your writing been following your writing for some years now your getting even better by the year. This piece makes me want to go out to Devils Den State park and take a walk and try to forget about how people have been have been talked into thinking having a dictator is going to make their lives better. That’s from not knowing history or reading. This country is going to learn the hard way I’m afraid. Some of these people can’t even spell Humanity.

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Those photos make me cry. I was born in the Ozarks and walking through its iconoclastic understory of rotting leaves gave me solace when I most needed solace. Reading you is a similar pleasure.

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Thanks! I'm glad it helped

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Wow. That's all I can say, as over the years of exchanges with you on Twitter, you have taught me not to hyperbolize. It isn't easy holding back--but I will. I will . . . .

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Ever since I found you on twitter, I have come to rely on you to eloquently capture what I cant put into words.

Thank you Sarah

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Wonderful

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Gracefully written. It works because so many of long for a better world.

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