Wildflowers

“I don’t want to live in Chicago anymore.”

The words I had just scribbled in my journal glared up at me. I was shocked I had written them. It was a truth that had been simmering below the surface for months, an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and constant busyness that dictated my life. It had taken a solo road trip to Scotland for it to all boil over, allowing me to be brave enough to admit it, even if that admonition was for my eyes only.

I glanced around me, afraid that the secret was out, despite the fact I was more than a thousand miles from home and I knew absolutely no one in the small but bustling Edinburgh café. I took a deep breath, sipped my perfectly hand-poured single origin black coffee on the last full day of my trip, and looked down at the words again.

“I don’t want to live in Chicago anymore.”

There it was.

It was the absolute truth, and I knew it. I had just spent 8 days driving around the Scottish Highlands on my own. Now, I had taken many solo trips before, but none had felt so empowering as conquering those Highland Roads. I spent each day choosing exactly what I wanted to do and when I wanted to do it. I had spent each day with no obligations but to choose which Highland walk I wanted to finish. Somedays I woke up at 5am to get to the summit of those walks just as the sun was reaching its place in the sky, and other days I stayed in bed until 10am, listening to the rain pour on my little A-frame accommodation, just steps away from the rugged North Atlantic. I had overcome my fear of driving on the opposite side of the road from the opposite side of the car, and that reward was freedom that found through a deep connection to the natural world. And I wasn’t ready to give that up.

As I left the café, I pulled out my phone, put in my headphones and found my “Scotland Highland Road Trip” playlist. It was filled with hundreds of my favorite songs, ranging from Talking Heads, to Animal Collective, to the Pixies, to Robyn, to James Brown, Mazzy Star, LCD Soundsystem, Prince, Queen, etc. That playlist had been my constant companion as I drove solo through the Highland Roads. I hit “shuffle” as I walked down Edinburgh’s winding roads. The strum of a familiar and simple guitar melody hit my ears. I chuckled because it was nearly too perfect, too divine, or perhaps just a big coincidence.

As I walked, Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” began. “You belong among the wildflowers. You belong in a boat out at sea. Sail away, kill off the hours. You belong somewhere you feel free.”

The song, though I had heard it more than a hundred times, resonated deep within my gut and radiated out through my fingertips and out through the crown of my head. How wonderful, but mostly, how terrifying that those lyrics confirmed everything I had just confessed to myself just moments before in that tragically hip café; especially that last line, “You belong somewhere you feel free.”

“That’s why I don’t want to leave,” I thought. I didn’t want to lose that freedom, that connection to nature. I was heartbroken, unusually so. I’ve often stated that the sign of good trip is when you feel happiness and sadness all at once when it comes close to the end, a bittersweet feeling that is overwhelmed by contentedness. It’s one my favorite emotions to experience; and it’s usually most potently present at the end of a great trip. This trip was one of my best, but that familiar bittersweet emotion hadn’t found its way into my being. Don’t get me wrong, I felt accomplished and grateful and proud, but I mostly felt sad. The heaviness far outweighed the contentedness this time. I didn’t want to go back to the very flat Chicago. I didn’t want to live that life of busyness any longer. I didn’t want my feet to only touch concrete surfaces. I wanted to be free.

Don’t get me wrong; I was incredibly grateful for the life I had in Chicago and the jobs that filled up my time but did bring me joy. I got to live in the great and beautiful city of Chicago and dwell just a block away from the gorgeous, expansive, ever changing Lake Michigan. Most of the time, I didn’t question my day to day life. I was content with small patches of grass, well designed gardens in spring, and an occasional walk by the lake on a concrete path, next to a perfectly mowed lawn, of course.

But then I went to the Scottish Highlands.

I had experienced nature in a way I hadn’t since I was a child when I would crawl through the woods in the dark during a boys vs. girls battle of capture the flag at summer camp (I was stealth! And quiet! I was all about the surprise attack). I didn’t care about mud or mosquitos or even poison ivy. My favorite pastime as a child was climbing in a gravel pile just around the corner from my Grandma’s house. Yes, the pile was man made, but there was something so cathartic about scooping up rocks in my Grandma’s metal measuring cups, dumping them back out and watching gravity rhythmically slide them down the pile. I was always content and covered in dust. I even have one memory of swimming with my clothes on in deep ditches filled to the brim with fresh rainwater after a heavy storm. In fact, if I remember correctly, it was still pouring rain as my brother and I ran chest deep through the ditches, arms stretched out, smiles on our soaked faces. This memory, I admit, may not be accurate. It may never have happened, but may indeed just be a remnant of my vivid imagination after longing and wishing to swim in such ditches full of rainwater.

Though I’ve been on my fair share of hikes, paddled my fair share of kayaks through gorgeous blue water around the world, and stuck my toes into various white sand beaches around the world, most of my adult life has been lived in big cities of steel, glass, and concrete. In my city life, I had been accustomed to move from one perfectly controlled environment to the next via an array of various concrete and asphalt paths, perhaps with a slither of freshly mown lawn on either side.

Scotland was a shockwave to my system, a slap in the face, or perhaps like waking up suddenly from a deep sleep. And I had needed it. It was chaos, and somehow that chaos had grounded me and rooted itself deep into my veins.

After I got past my initial Highland driving anxiety, I began to crank my music up and experience the highlands on a cellular level. Besides stopping on the roadside every few miles, stunned that I was in a more beautiful place than moments before when I was in the most beautiful place I had ever seen, I walked. I walked 7 days of the 8 days I was in the Highlands. There were no mowed lawns, paved trails, or even wooden steps. Once you parked the car, you found the foot path, definitely not paved, and you went. Sometimes you had to stop, look closely, and take a guess as to whether the path veered right or left. And sometimes, you had to take off your boots, roll up your pants as high as they would go, and wade through a bitter cold stream just feet from a waterfall in order to continue the path.

I am quite sure that on every highland walk I took, I was rained on in some capacity, whether it was from a misty fog, or an all-out wind-induced sideways rain. When coming down from an early morning foggy ascent to the Old Man of Storr, I slipped in mud and fell on my butt, despite my sturdy hiking boots and all of my best efforts not to. My legs sunk knee deep into a heathery bog and would have gone further had I not taken a quick and muddled leap out onto equally mushy ground. Next to the Atlantic, it was so windy that sand pelted my face, leaving small red marks in its wake. While hiking the popular Quiraing trail on the Isle of Skye, it was so windy that I (unnecessarily) feared that I would be blown off the side of the hill if I got too close to the edge.

In other words, nature kicked my ass.

And I loved every moment of it; the chaos, the sideways rain, the mud soaked boots, my windswept hair that somehow made me look like I was 12 years old, and even that little bit of fear that if I wasn’t careful, I might gravely injure myself.

It was refreshing. It was invigorating. It made me feel alive in a way I hadn’t felt in so long.

But I was leaving it all, thousands of miles away. In less than 24 hours, I was returning to Chicago, the very flat Chicago with no hills and definitely no mountains for at least a few hundred miles. I was going to be returning to the concrete jungle, my concrete studio apartment, walking from one controlled environment to the next. No more epic walks through eerily foggy rock formations, no more slipping on my butt in mud no matter how hard I tried not to, no more bitter cold walks through mountain streams, and no more hilariously windswept hair.

My heart was broken. I feared that once I returned home, I would forget that freedom and connection and I would once again become disconnected from the Earth. I loved her, and it felt as though I was leaving her, not knowing when I would return.

As I walked the streets of Edinburgh that last day of my trip, Tom Petty sang into my ears as if he were a prophet, “Run away, go find a lover. Run away, let your heart be your guide. You deserve the deepest of cover. You belong in that home by and by.” It was wonderful and it was terrifying because it was true.

I took a deep breath as the song came to an end, with that ever so poignant line repeating at the end, “You belong somewhere you feel free.”

Though I couldn’t just skip my flight and stay, because as much as my life is great, it just isn’t a Hollywood movie, I boarded my plane for the nearly 7-hour trip home. After moving through customs and collecting my luggage, I headed towards the ever-familiar CTA Blue Line train, about to take the hours’ long journey back to my tiny, nearly lakeside apartment. The train pulled away just as soon as I got on. I found an empty seat and maneuvered my legs around my luggage to avoid it haphazardly rolling away. I pulled out my phone, untangled mu headphones, and found that old trusted companion, my “Scotland Highlands Road Trip” playlist. Jet lagged, I hit “shuffle” but was jolted awake nearly in as those same simple yet familiar guitar chords hit my ears. There was no denying it now; no way to excuse that confession I had written to myself in that busy café in Edinburgh. How profound that this would be the first song I would hear in Chicago. “Okay universe, you got me,” I thought as once again, Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” hit my ears. “You belong somewhere you feel free.”

But instead of grief this time, I felt a glimmer of hope. Yes, it meant change was coming. Yes, I had a lot of questions to answer, a lot of research to do, and a lot of planning. It was nearly overwhelming. But for the first time since leaving the Highlands, I began to feel that familiar bittersweet feeling that I love to experience at the end of a trip; that happiness and sadness all at once. But this time, I felt it not because my trip was over, but rather, because my time in Chicago was now coming to a close. I didn’t have all of the answers, or perhaps even the proper questions. But there was one thing I knew; I belonged somewhere I felt free.

And I was going to make it happen.