Meet Laura

Peeep…peeep….peeep…peeep…I crack my eyes open slowly from a deep sleep to greet the inky blackness of night, surrounded by the deafening chorus of spring peeper frogs.

I reach to my left, feeling the cool touch of raccoon bones, the ghost of a previous tenant in the old drainage pipe I’d fallen asleep in – my version of a den. I climb over them slowly and carefully making my way out and relishing the soft breeze as it hits my skin. Reluctantly, I walk the mile back home through the night, quelling the fear of my worried parents.

I was always a weird kid, finding I related more to the local pack of coyotes than I did to my classmates at school. I spent most of my time on their land, the overgrown tobacco fields and woodlands at the end of my street.

I hated being an alien in this world, going home at night and eating food from the grocery store. I felt the wild woods was more my home than a building with four walls, but I didn’t have the skills or knowledge to stay there indefinitely. While walking home that morning, I decided to spend the rest of my life learning how to be a human animal so I could stay in these wild places I love so much without having to rely on tethers to society.

I used to think I was born in the wrong time. These elusive skills I so desperately craved were something that used to be common knowledge for every human in existence, yet somehow their importance got lost along the way.

In finding these skills, I’ve come to appreciate the fact that the modern world comes with its own special gifts, such as the ability to travel with ease and experience vastly different places and cultures.

I realized there’s something incredible about the contrast of existing in both the “civilized” and “wild” worlds, to feel comfortable in every situation. My love of wild places has also taught me what it really means to be human. And now, that’s my “happy place,” walking this line between the modern world and something much more ancient.