“Wild” A book review by Michelle Welch

“Wild”: A book review by Michelle Welch

“Wild” made a big splash when it came out several years ago: bestseller lists, featured on Oprah, and other things that triggered my basic snobbery and made me not want to read it. I wouldn’t have read it at all if I hadn’t chosen it at random to download during an ebook demonstration at my workplace. As happens so often, this chance occurrence turned out to be more valuable than I would have guessed, and a book that’s not strictly Buddhist in nature proved to have themes very much in line with what I’ve been studying in Buddhism.

Cheryl Strayed begins her 3-month, 1100-mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail as a journey of self-discovery, an attempt to cope with the sudden death of her mother, a failed marriage, and a long chain of bad decisions made in the wake of these traumas. At first, her plans are foiled one after another: not only does she discover she was unprepared for the arduous trek, but the unpredictable weather, a too-heavy backpack, and boots that fit so badly she loses several toenails cause so much strain that she can’t think of anything but her current problems. She’s simply too exhausted at the end of each day for the soul searching she had hoped to do. But something unexpected happens as the hike progresses. While her mind is cleared of its usual guilt and anxiety to cope with the stresses of her journey, her trauma begins to untangle itself. By the end of her hike, she has finally acknowledged all of her feelings about her mother’s death and let them go, and she can move forward.

One passage in particular reminded me of the Shambhala teachings, and the themes of acceptance and forgiveness that I’ve seen in them. Late in her trek, Strayed reflects on her ex-husband and the conflicts they had leading up to their divorce. “I’d made a mistake, to torment myself with all the ways I’d wronged him. What if I forgave myself? I thought. What if I forgave myself even though I’d done something I shouldn’t have? … What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn’t have done was what also got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?” It’s a brutally honest and fascinating example of how one person works through her own suffering.