Searching for the Wild Child

Article & Photography By Jaana Hatton

I grew up playing in the Finnish woodlands since I was five or six years old. Scents of spring-fresh fir, summer-warmed moss and autumn-soaked leaves permeated my senses, my very being. I climbed to the tops of cliffs carved by ice age or snuggled in their crevices to find shelter from the breeze. Fallen branches became building material for little hide-aways. A wild child of the forest I was, free to explore while learning to be self-reliant. And I always found my way home.

The adult years and marriage took me around the world. For twenty-five years, we lived in the major cities of various countries. Woodland adventures were far and few between. The scents I encountered were those of car exhaust, overflowing dumpsters, unrecognizable street food and hot asphalt. As much as I explored, I felt bewildered – and lost.

Now the big cities are but a memory, gladly left behind. I once more reside close to forests and natural areas, this time in North Central Washington. I am sixty-one years old, and again I roam in the open air, away from the suffocating limits of streets and buildings.

There are other suffocating circumstances which make me long for the woods. In adulthood, we are too busy and obligated to discover and have adventures. The everyday demands keep us on tight schedules and afford us little time to play. Every now and again, it can become too much – a stressor, a menace, a burden. Every now again, we need an escape.

For me, the best get-away is always to a natural setting. A forest, a hilltop, a river’s edge are all happy places. It need not be a week or even a day – just a few hours outdoors makes the world right for me.

I carry with me a “collecting bag” for any interesting thing that may await on my path. Rocks, sticks, pinecones and feathers. The child in me wants to play. My collection of stones is extensive and precious, each one hand selected. During our last move (I mean last, not latest, for this is it) the movers were chuckling that they had never transported boxes and boxes of rocks before. So be it. They did not know they were holding treasures.

When I am out there wandering and gathering, now in my mature age, I don’t feel the sixty-one years on my shoulders. It’s the six-year old, light-stepping, curious wild child that emerges from within me. She reminds me who I really am when I am free from the many roles I play in the everyday world. Here in the woods I am the child, the grown-up, the soul that I am. I cannot hide from myself nor do I need to hide from anyone. I can simply be.

I am far from my childhood home, an ocean and a continent away, but it is in nature when all is familiar again. The pine needles yield underfoot as they always did, the crusty spring snow holds my weight just so, the wild strawberries taste as sweet as they did decades ago. This is home, this wild open nature.