Good Fires Prevent Bad Ones
how's your Wild doing?
Whenever someone shares that they are worried about contradicting themselves the first thing that comes to my mind is, “…but aren’t we made up of many Selves?” My second thought wonders how pervious we are to fear. How this fear can have us standing in our own way; keeping us from even wanting to learn because what if we have to admit that we were wrong? Actually change our minds?? Or worse! When understanding leads to inevitable growth and then we have to change our circumstances. Maybe we’ll have to pivot. Maybe we’ll have to burn it all down. I work with an amateur ecologist who drives an old chevy truck with a bumper sticker that reads: “Good fires prevent bad ones.” Fires are a part of the natural ecological process. When we stop them from occurring out of fear or indolence, because it seems daunting or a little dangerous, then we are disrupting a natural process. We know what suppression does. It can cause a devastating wildfire beyond our control. In my experience, all of the greatest transformations come with a little risk. A lil reminder of how important it is to care enough to start them good fires.
In high school I had a dear friend (who also drove an old chevy truck. do I smell a theme?) whose house I would stay at sometimes. I loved his family. He had a sister who, at school, was extremely outgoing and friendly. She did all the right things which at our southern baptist christian school meant playing sports, being pretty, making good grades, going to church, loving god and proving it by shouting it from the rooftops, so to speak. She was seen as the golden child or a goodie two shoes depending on who you’d ask. My dear friend and his other sister were fun and friendly as well, but seen as deviants to our school’s ways. I was naturally more comfortable around them. Probably due in large part to the fact that at home the Golden Sister would flip a switch to seemingly absent at best or absolute nightmare at worst. Her excited bright eyes and large smile shrunk to a sullen expression and she usually confined herself to her room. Everyone else in the house would be in high spirits, helpful, silly, whatever but she would emerge from her cave to respond to anyone who spoke to her in an irritable tone. Either yearning to be unbothered or demanding something she wanted. Typically she was out of the house and that always felt like a nice relief. I felt much closer to her at school than I ever did at their family home.
At the time I told myself that I found her behavior unsettling because it was surprising. Such a contrast, a “contradiction” to who I thought she was. I thought something must have been terribly wrong. But I can now see the most unsettling thing was that in her deportment I saw a glimmer of myself. I think that whenever we… well, I’ll just speak for myself. Whenever I see someone doing something “cringe” I immediately jump to all the ways that I am not that. Almost like a kind of instinctual defense mechanism. I find examples of my behavior to prove to myself that I am different. But would I find it cringe, or care, or even notice at all if I didn’t see something about myself in it? It could be something that is being reflected back to me. Or maybe it’s something I am afraid to become. Or maybe it’s something I wish I was but have created a barrier to keep me from becoming it.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it many times I’m sure, but I write to develop a language with myself; with all of my selves. As a method of holding these selves better, even, perhaps especially, the ugly ones. I write to get a handle on them before their contradictions mishandle me. And then I share it in hopes of connecting. Most things I do boil down to connection. That’s what I crave. Real, delicious connection. I am a person of proximity and by that I mean I won’t be able to maintain consistent communication with you if you are not living where I’m living. Where digital communication typically leads to seeing the person IN PERSON relatively soon. Acquaintances don’t amuse me. I can be sort of ‘all or nothing’ in that way. I am loyal but if you ever start thinking I’m only yours and start placing expectations on me I’ll shatter them as fast as I can— in an almost destructive, instinctual manner.
Once I see the signs of codependency developing in a relationship I begin to squirm and growl like a wild animal trapped in a cage. Seemingly unexpected irritation, or rage, arises over any small thing that appears to threaten my independence further. As I reckon with this I am reminded of a certain story.
At the end of the school year on my last year teaching in Spain in 2019 a teacher I worked with very closely gave me a gift. It was a children’s book titled ‘Salvaje’ which is a translated version of Emily Hughes’ ‘Wild.’ It is a well illustrated book with simple text. The cover is fantastic— a picture of a naked little girl with a flower nested in her long messy hair, wide excited eyes and a soft smile. The energy radiates off of the cover.
The story begins—
No one remembered how she came to the woods, but all knew it was right. The whole forest took her as their own.
Great start, right? She learned to eat from the bears, speak from the birds, play from the foxes, and lived her best life until one day some other animals came around. A couple of humans find her and take it upon themselves to “save her.” They try correcting her ways, teaching her how to properly exist as a little girl should.
Famed psychiatrist takes in feral child, the newspaper reads.
Needless to say, the girl grows increasingly miserable. The humans don’t understand why their methods are not working. It’s a sad and frustrating time for everyone. At the end of the story *SPOILER ALERT* she freaks out, destroys the house, and goes back to the forest taking the resident dog and cat along with her.
The gift of this book touched me, specifically the inscription, but I don’t think I realized how poignant it actually was. I am often flippantly called a “free spirit” to which I try and conceal a dramatic eye roll. I have accustomed to tuning out once assigned this noun, feeling as though the assigner is satisfied with cursory classifications or labels. Thus, it took me almost four years, up to the moment of writing this essay, to truly see myself in this story. The gift was prescient in nature. It took me feeling (re)captured, as an adult, to understand the wreckage I leave and why.
The inscription my teacher/mentor/friend wrote on the inside cover said I reminded her of how she once was when she was younger. She told me I can always come home. That sentence hit something inside of me that was covered in cobwebs moments before reading it. She saw the past, present, and future and was able to deliver it to me in a language I could speak… or would eventually speak. Women are remarkable in this way.
The story ends—
No one remembered how she left, but everyone knew it was right.
I’m not gonna lie, the last page hits different in Spanish:
Porque no se puede domar algo tan felizmente salvaje…
English:
The parts of myself that I am able to see in my friend’s moody sister or in this wild little girl are inconvenient to see. They initially make me shudder at all the expectations I’m not living up to until my brain catches up to the fact that it’s me, hi…. I’m the problem it’s me placing expectations on hypotheticals or rather, creating hypothetical expectations!!
More often than I care to admit I have to remind myself, “Hey Lex, you’re the adult now, remember? You are directing your own life. YOU get to decide what it looks like! Go forth and be merry….. come on you can do it….” but I am made up of many selves and most of them aren’t convinced. Occasionally, however, some of them get on board and those times feel hopeful. Writing helps me weave the Selves together, the convenient and the ugly ones alike. I hope that one day we are able to weave a big basket that holds them all together, snuggling nicely.
And if not, I can always just rip the basket to shreds, along with my clothes, and take off to the forest with nothing but the skin on my back for the rest of my days.
Because you cannot tame something so happily wild…
