Going Feral

Cherie said she’s imagined the opening scene from a documentary.  Our children are on camera and an off-screen voice asks, “When did you first notice that your parents were going feral?”

We’re eating more wild edibles these days and we’ve taken to sleeping outside. I know that for many readers of this blog those facts aren’t particularly remarkable, but they’re way outside the cultural norms these days.  Plenty of people would see them as evidence that we’re going feral.

So be it.  Sleeping outside this time of year is wonderful.  The air is cool, the sky is beautiful, the lightning bugs are entertaining and the nightsounds are enjoyable.  It’s not quiet outside at night.  The frogs and crickets keep up a steady hum, punctuated by the calls of whippoorwills and the occasional owl. Less pleasant, but interesting, are the howls and yips of coyotes.

I’m an early riser, but sleeping outside wakes me even earlier.  Not just because the rooster starts crowing well before sunup, but primarily because daytime arrives much sooner than we realize when we’re sleeping indoors. And at dawn the air is crowded with birdsongs, nature’s alarm clock.

I don’t think there’s any danger of us becoming entirely undomesticated, but I do hope we keep stretching the boundaries.  I hope we keep going feral.

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