I was thinking recently about how I kept telling everyone, "I'm going on vacation", but it didn't really feel like vacation. When I was in the thick of it, when I was sleeping in my car, waking up sweating in my tent, cleaning my utensils in grass (which I like to call nature's napkin), and driving for hours on end I feel like that is my life. I feel like the life I live in now where I clock in and go mostly to and from home and a job is sort of vacating from my real life. I thrive in my real life. I thrive in nature and on the road.
After I cleaned the last week off of me in the shower today I stepped out and looked in the mirror. It was weird seeing myself all clean. In Kentucky I peered into the mirror and saw a nappy, knoted head of hair sitting atop a face with faintly fresh freckles from the sun. Dewey sweat sat atop my nose, and everywhere was dirty. I feel most beautiful in those moments. I feel most natural and in my element. Comparatively I feel at my least when I am done up. If I end up putting on makeup it lasts for only a few hours before I rub it off. It feels uncomfortable when I am so clean because I don't feel ready for much. I feel like I have to protect my cleanness. Biking or running is only going to mess it up. I hate thinking like that! When you're dirty, you're already dirty, so just keep on getting dirty. It feels good to sweat when you just don't care about what shirt your pitting out, or how you're going to smell to the customers at work. When you're dirty because you're outside in nature, it's just the way it is. It's natural. And I think I probably speak for mostly just myself when I say this, but I'll say it again... I feel most beautiful when I am dirty, camping, sweating, and just being plain old stanky.
I cannot wait for the day that comes again where I can be in a community of people who stink. Who walk up to me and tell me, "You're too clean", because that actually did happen my first day in Kentucky. I cannot wait to sweat again in places I never knew I could sweat.
Gosh. I love what nature does to me. I could do without the freakishly evenly scattered chigger bites ALL OVER my legs, but the rest I want to do with. I want to do with for a long, long time.
