“He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars.” Jack London



It’s interesting being back in Michigan, and kind of awesome that I ended up here instead of somewhere like North Dakota where nothing would be familiar. Just about every day I get a jolt of nostalgia in my natural surroundings: this week it was lilies of the valley. I was walking around Reeds Lake and there was a bed of them under a big tree in someone’s front yard. I must have looked new to the American north (or as if I had just woken from a long coma), I was so exited over my discovery. I picked one and smelled it – mental pictures flashed of my nana’s back yard…

When I was little, I’d go trout fishing with my dad. Actually he’d fish – that ballet of wrist and rod over ice cold water – and I’d build fantastical villages of wild flowers and twigs on the bank. Any forest walk in Michigan reminds me of those mornings – emerald-green, velvet moss; trout on an iron skillet for breakfast; the smell of warm, withered leaves…

I’ve spent time drunk in the Michigan woods. I went to college in the Upper Peninsula, after all. All those camping trips carrying heavy backpacks with provisions (screw cap wine, beer, cannabis and beef jerky). Sitting around campfires stoned and eating s’mores for dinner…

I have always felt most comfortable outside in nature. I surrendered to my addiction on a beach in Florida. I have spent countless hours on trails and mountaintops and along the water all over the world. Since I have been sober, hiking has taken on new meaning and every time I’m feeling like the doldrums or the cravings are creeping up (my two least favorite emotional visitors), I go for a walk. As corny as it sounds, I always recommend “getting outside and communing with nature,” whenever I’m asked about the best way to deal with the triggers and black moods of recovery.

In nature, it’s not just the exercise that transports us; the metaphorical taking of “one step at a time”. It’s the excruciating joy of being an integral part of something so vast and gorgeous. In short, being outside in nature makes us feel alive. To pick and smell a lily of the valley is such a universal act. And that is what we all want to feel after addiction’s dark isolation: to be part of something and everything, attuned to our past and our glorious future…