Wilderness

1.30.02

When I was eight or nine, I asked my parents if we could move to a farm. We moved every couple of years anyway, so I figured, why not move to a farm?

I was a big nature-lover, and the whole idea appealed to me: working with animals, being outdoors. At least that was what I thought it would be like.

My parents shook their heads at me and said, "Do you realize how much work it is to run a farm? You would have a lot of work to do, too, you know. You don't want to live on a farm."

My father had actual first-hand experience with farm work. He had lived and worked on my great-grandfather's farm when he was a teenager.

From what I understand, not only was the work intensive, but my great-grandfather sounds like kind of a jerk. I guess I can understand that my father felt no nostalgia for farm life.

Around that time, I read a book that blew up my nature fantasies to colossal proportions.

It was called "My Side of the Mountain," and it was about a boy who-for a reason I don't remember-went to live all alone in the woods.

I loved that book.

I imagined myself living alone in the wilderness. The boy in the book tanned leather by soaking a hide in a combination of his urine and some oak bark.

I figured I could do that, too.

In my fantasies, I completely bypassed the hungry and uncomfortable "settling in" period, and saw myself living in the hollowed-out trunk of an enormous tree that included a fireplace and numerous animal-pelt blankets from forest creatures I did not actually kill.

Thanks to the urine method of tanning leather, I wore stylish and comfortable, heavily fringed outfits of my own design and manufacture. Of course, this fantasy also included me being incredibly beautiful.

In the summertime, the natural leather miniskirt became de rigueur, showing off my long, tanned legs. At some point, the fantasy also included me being very good at gymnastics.

I spent hours in this imaginary world. It felt wonderful to be in nature, and far away from anyone.

In real life my family was outdoorsy, camping, hiking, and fishing a lot in the summers, so it is not surprising that I felt a strong affinity for nature.

I'm sure I didn't realize how lonely it would be to live in the woods with no one to talk to, no human affection or parental care. It took years for the fantasy to fade away, though it remains vivid in my memory.

As I got older, other fantasies possessed me. My imaginary life became occupied with real or made-up boys I liked, and then there was a pretty long dry spell.

I was still a big nature lover for that whole time, but for whatever reason, I spent a lot less time focusing on it. I went to college on and off for about a decade, worked, and tried to figure out what I wanted from life.

I got married a few years ago, so no more fantasies about boys, and have been living in Chicago now for the better part of 13 years.

For most of that time I have lived in a series of Chicago's residential neighborhoods. I have been occupied with things I could do and have here in the city: political activities, a busy social life, sushi.

I was never that fond of living here, though. The bricks and concrete, the dull colors, the noise-I get so tired of them.

The sharp angles of the buildings cut into my sense of myself. I yearn for the softness of trees and the smell of clean air.

I do not like living in the city, but for almost a decade I've been sweeping that under the rug of my everyday life.

A couple of weeks ago something changed. I read my horoscope in the morning, and it predicted that I would get fed up with routine and go through a kind of breakdown, but that I shouldn't fight it.

As usual when I read my horoscope, I thought, "What the hell do they know? Fed up with routine? I'm fine!"

But that evening I did have a little bit of a breakdown. Out of nowhere, I felt trapped, cramped inside the constraints of a life in which I was always good, always responsible, always doing what I should do.

I go to bed early so I can be at work on time, I hurry home to cook, shop, do housework, try to fit in a little writing.

I eat right, avoid sweets and junk food, and don't spend my money on new clothes or luxuries. In fact, I save money.

Like many people, my daily routine conspicuously lacks the little indulgences that excite one's sense of joy, and on this day I felt I was starving.

In tears, I told my husband that it felt empty to keep doing the right thing out of a tired sense of obligation. I begged Joel to get me out of the city. I needed to feel the soft, fractal outlines of trees, hear the muted sound of snow in the forest.

So we drove out of the city to a forest preserve we have visited before, and on that drive I began to have a new fantasy.

In this fantasy, Joel and I buy a cozy little house out near that forest preserve.

It has a room for an office lined with bookshelves, where I go to write. We have enough yard around the house to be able to have a dog, a medium-sized mutt with plenty of puppy in him, and every day I take the dog walking to the forest preserve.

At first I simply imagined long walks with the dog along the forest trails. Instead of being cooped up all day with no place to walk, I would have millions of places to explore in the forest preserve.

Instead of the unforgiving brick and pavement of the city and its endless routines, the infinite details of the forest would enchant my heart. Every trail could be investigated, every secret spot discovered and hoarded like treasure.

When we passed the Nature Center in the forest preserve, I envisioned myself giving tours there, then thought of taking the naturalist training courses at the arboretum outside of Chicago.

Instead elbowing my way through the suits at rush hour, I would guide children through the trails, naming the jeweled beetle hiding in the leaf litter, and exploding the seed pods of the touch-me-nots.

Instead of skyscrapers blocking the sun, I can stand where a fallen tree branch has opened the upper canopy and the sun-germinating species are springing from the seed bank below.

Later I am struck by another idea. I remember how I loved the naturalist training I received in California, identifying and studying plant communities on their own turf.

Why not do my own studies in the forest? I can lay out transects and inventory the species on the forest floor, be the confidant of the forbs and fungi. I can finally use the ecology field training I learned and then never really got to apply!

I always wanted to return to that kind of work, and for years it eluded me. Now it has become real in my mind.

I am fixated on this image. I take the dog with me on my walks, to visit my special sites. I hunker down on the forest floor, taking notes on the life below a rotting log. I take stock of the flora inside my meter-square frames, noting every acorn, every fungal fruiting body, every herb poking through the leaves toward the sun.

Returning home, I get in the bath and let the errant ticks float to the top of the water. At night I go over my notes and write my observations in one of a long series of field notebooks.

Unlike my fantasies of life as a gorgeous survivalist/gymnast, what I am imagining now might actually be possible. Joel and I are already planning to move out of the city. And there is no reason that we can't find a house somewhere remotely near a forest preserve.

The Morton Arboretum holds those classes every year.

But not only are these dreams possible, they are better than the ones I had as a child. In these dreams I am not alone-or at least not all the time.

I have a dog to keep me company out in the woods.

Instead of curling up inside a tree trunk at night, I crawl into bed with Joel. In this scenario, I revel in the beauty of the woods, but instead of a urine-tanned leather-fringed mini-skirt, I'm wearing cargo pants and a field vest.

Personal musings:

Wilderness: Dreams of living in the wild persist and change.

All grown up: At 12 I looked like I was 20, at 24 I looked 15.

Altruism: Can you ever repay the kindness of a stranger?

Photos in a box: A package from my brother turned my memories of childhood upside down.

Short story long: How to lengthen a narrative in a few easy steps.

Writing: Going the distance to find things to write about.

Neighbors: An amazing account of urban generosity.

Snacking: The angst of a healthy diet.

Thoughts on spiritual matters:

Subway preachers: Transcendence on the Red Line.

Thoughts in the Kingdom: How do you keep your mind in heaven and your heart in the world?

After September 11: Response to an attack on a mosque in Bridgeview, Ill., on September 12.