I LOVE camping. There's something about falling asleep in proper darkness and waking up hearing the birds that overrides the tiredness.
With Bex Band
Bex is awesome. She is the founder of Love Her Wild, a women's adventure community and a fantastic curator of interesting people.
When Bex asked me to speak at her women's adventure weekend I jumped at the chance. These events are so warm and open, everyone shares and is encouraged to tell their story, and it's a great place to tell yours.
I had a really fantastic weekend, making so many new friends, learning that good food is important even when camping, that i am terrible at Geography, that women are unstoppable and that there are some amazing humans in the world.
A lady called Rowena read out this poem and I fell in love with it. It sums up for me why i love sleeping outdoors and then why returning home feels claustrophobic:
SLEEPING IN THE FOREST
Mary Oliver
I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts,
her pockets full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before,
a stone on the riverbed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts,
and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom.
By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.