Wilderness 2

 Trying to write about wilderness is like trying to look at your backside in a mirror

You know it is there somewhere, but you just can't seem to see it.

I think wilderness exists in the mind

It is the other

Sometimes the strangers of a town are the wilderness

Sometimes the people you know in a town

Are a wilderness too

But often we escape into nature to get away from society

A forest walk or along a hill top can be freeing

It's not wilderness exactly just away.

Perhaps true wilderness is being separated from civilization

And having only nature

I've felt very free walking in the Blue mountains on my own with just a bottle of water in my rucksack

I met another hiker some hours later with his backpack full of water and he thought I was mad to be walking with so little water.

I suppose if I had a good knee I would be doing that again,

But I've broken it and now the idea of being away and relying on

my body to run or walk enough without extreme arthritic pain

means I don't want to consider it