Lästips för helgen: ”Vild” av Cheryl Strayed

Vill du fara på en resa, en andlig och fysisk upptäcktsfärd som får dig att inse de viktigaste sanningarna om dig själv, människor och livet? Om du inte har möjlighet att göra det just nu, läs Cheryl Strayeds ”Vild” som tar dig på ett precis sådant äventyr.

Efter att ha förlorat sin mamma till cancer, tappar Cheryl sig själv. En 100-dagars vandring på Pacific Crest Trail genom Californias öknen och berg samt Oregons regndränkta skogar. Hon genomhärdar fysisk och mental utmaning, hamnar i olika strapatser, men möter också mänsklig vänlighet och godhet. Hon sover under bar himmel och vaknar för att skåda soluppgång, hon ligger ensam och rädd i sin tält eller läser med pannlampa på i mysighet av nattens mörker. Hon badar skrikande av glädje i kalla strömmar med nya vänner, har möte med vilda djur och förundras av naturens storhet.

Hennes fötter blöder, hon stinker och lider. Hon skrattar och sjunger. Hon älskar hela världen och upplever djup tacksamhet.

En underbar bok som du kan hitta här på engelska och här på svenska. E-bok finns på Storytel och Bokus.  Den finns även som film med Reese Witherspoon att hyra på Apple TV.

Några citat från boken. Observera hur nästan alla kan överföras till vårt vanliga vardagliga liv (I fet stil det som resonerar mest med mig):

• ”I’d been in the wilderness for thirty-eight days and by then I’d come to know that anything could happen and everything would”
• “Each day on the trail was the only possible preparation for the one that followed. And sometimes even the day before didn’t prepare me for what would happen next”
• “I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me. Insisting on this story was a form of mind control, but for the most part, it worked. Every time I heard a sound of unknown origin or felt something horrible cohering in my imagination, I pushed it away. I simply did not let myself become afraid. Fear begets fear. Power begets power. I willed myself to beget power. And it wasn’t long before I actually wasn’t afraid.”
• “The thing about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, the thing that was so profound to me that summer – and yet also, like most things, so very simple – was how few choices I had and how often I had to do the thing I least wanted to do . How there was no escape or denial. No numbing it down  with a martini or covering it up with a roll in the hay.”
• “I was amazed that what I needed to survive could be carried on my back. And, most surprising of all, that I could carry it. That I could bear the unbearable.  This realisation about my physical, material life couldn’t help but spill over into the emotional and spiritual realm. That my complicated life could be made so simple was astounding. It had begun to occur to me that that perhaps it was okay that I hadn’t spent my days on the trail pondering the sorrows of my life, that perhaps by being forced to focus on my physical suffering some of my emotional suffering would fade away.”
• “…I saw the power of darkness. Saw that, in fact, I had strayed and that I was a stray and that from the wild places my straying had brought me, I knew things I couldn’t have know before”
• “I simply made a leap of faith and pushed on in the direction where I’d never been”
• “I’m a slow walker, but I never walk back” (Abraham Lincoln)