When I was a little girl, I remember sneaking out my window, tiptoeing across our front porch, and hopping off steps into dewy grass on warm, star-filled nights. I had trouble sleeping, anxiety and paranoia that kept me tossing and turning, and an overactive imagination pounding inside my head. Outside, I found comfort as I silently wandered through the fields behind our house, pausing to listen to trees, bathing in the sound of crickets and the gentle air that cooled my cheeks.

 

My family eventually moved away from this rural setting to suburbia. And my imagination and insomnia became a detriment. In middle school, the noise inside my head was deafening. By high school, I was hallucinating, seeing entities that weren’t there, frightening my peers with my detachment. After school, I’d find a way back to the woods and open fields. I’d cozy up to moss and tree trunks, reach through tall grass for some forest spirit to hold onto, for someone to help me feel safe and grounded. 

 

Once again, I moved further from the woods, leaving the suburbs to attend college. As a freshman, I started opening up to doctors about my mental health and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. A year later, while battling persistent illness, I was diagnosed with lupus. Further exacerbating my health issues, I was stuck in an abusive relationship. The stress of working and going to school full-time, poor health, and a traumatic home environment compounded, snow-balling into a lack of will to live. Despite this, I graduated college, and moved even further from the woods, settling in the warehouse district of Detroit. 

 

In the big city, nostalgia took its hold on me. I longed for star-filled nights and quiet nighttime wandering. I found pieces of those feelings by the riverside, in corners of local parks, at Belle Isle on a weekday; though I still struggled with my health and with overcoming the fear that trauma had built. One day, I decided my time on Earth was nearing its end. To give myself a proper send off, I thought I’d get away from it all — from cars and buildings, the fear, pain and fatigue — and reconvene with trees. I spent what little money I had on a few essentials, then planned my first backpacking trip with a friend. I didn’t expect to return.

 

Life, of course, is full of the unexpected. After trudging through the woods for miles with a pack that was way too heavy, I was exhaustedly invigorated. I impressed myself with my endurance. And, unknowingly, found a new coping mechanism. A year later, I planned my first solo trip. I left work to do it even though I was told I couldn’t. I couldn’t protect myself, they said, “a woman shouldn’t be alone in the wilderness”. I told myself, maybe this is where I’ll end. Instead, I was again shown the unexpected: I defied what society expected.

 

In 2022, I embarked on a fantastic journey, one that took years of penny-pinching and a full year of planning. The odds were slim with the state my body was in. But I did it. I hiked the entire state of Michigan. Using the North Country Trail, I hiked 1,160 miles through the Lower and Upper Peninsula. While I told people I was walking to raise awareness for social justice, women’s rights, and indigenous sovereignty, I realized that, more simply, I was hiking for myself. I walked to prove that I was strong, I was capable, and I would not be defeated by illness or trauma or grief. I remember the moment that realization came to me…

 

Hundreds of miles into my journey, my pack weighs me back, feet throb with exhaustion, head sways with dizziness. There’s silence, and then there’s wind. Suddenly, everything comes rushing in — the years of fear, the pain fueling sadness, anger at seeing the past. It hits me and sends me rocking forward. I reach out, my hands grasp a tree, fingers sink into crevices of bark. I’m steadied by this giant being as I stand, sobbing. It’s here I realize that “to cope” was my greatest need. From there, I kept hiking. On route to thriving. 

 

Outdoor recreation is more than leisure, it’s well being. We should all have access to outdoor spaces and the opportunity to thrive in nature. Every person, regardless of race, gender, age, ability, citizenship or sexual orientation, should have the right to clean air and water, shelter, and the freedom to enjoy the outdoors. I’ve been privileged to have been raised in an environment which gave me that. While I experienced hardships, they didn’t define me. Rather, they challenged me to explore new ways of being. If I can guide one other person to find that sense of solace and resilience that I found in outdoor recreation, my life will have yet another reason to be worth living.