I am a 33 year old woman, making me just one of an estimated 8.7 million species on Earth. There are a number of characteristics about me that divide me even more.
I'm a woman in her 30's, a human, married to a woman though I don’t necessarily consider myself a lesbian, a wishful artist, a teacher - none of which matters. What you should really know about me is what awakens me. What I would ever want to know about you, should we ever cross paths, is what makes your brain scatter into a spiderweb of ideas and excitement when you start thinking about it. What
makes your body feel like you’ve got all the endorphins of a satisfying run?
I would have little interest to know where you see yourself in five years. I want to know what you think about when there is nothing - no phone, no books, no people, no TV, nothing to seek for entertainment. Where does your mind drift? I’ve literally hiked an active volcano with my mom who had a rare heart condition. This is the type of thing that make me look back and think, “What was I thinking?” There are also things that make my heart skip a beat. Fear and adventure go hand in hand.
There will never be an easy answer to what you want to do with your life. I don’t mean a career. I don’t mean family and children. I mean that you are one of 7.5 billion people in the world. I mean that we humans are only one species out of 8.7 million. And to be quite honest, most of these other species really know what they’re doing accidentally. What are you going to do? I’ve thrust myself into a series of unknowns that have left me vulnerable and weak in so many ways. I’ve learned lesson after lesson only to find that I know less than I thought.
But nature - throwing myself in nature awakens me. You?
Liz is a graduate of Clemson University who later joined the Peace Corp and worked in the remote Pacific island of Vanuatu for two years. Liz is now a Montessori teacher based in Maryland. Returning home from her Peace Corp experience, Liz began to wonder: what’s the deal with scheduled community? How do you rejoin your society once you’ve broken all of its rules? How can we survive eating only what we grow?