Wild

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Audio Book Review by Amy Hanson

Listening to an audio book is an entirely different experience.  Sometimes I find myself actually driving around for an extra ten minutes because I am so engrossed in the book.  Wild by Cheryl Strayed was one of those types of books. I would leave early to drive places just so I could sit in the parking lot for a few minutes and listen a little longer before I started my next task.

The disadvantage to listening to an audio book is that when the language is harsh or brash, you can’t just skim over it and you can’t just push fast-forward without skipping to the next tract and missing a segment of the book.  I learn to just think of it as words that have no purpose to the story and that becomes my version of “skimming”.  I had to do this a few times in the book but putting that aside, this book helped me find a little of myself, while Cheryl was finding herself in the Wild.

Cheryl is in her late 20’s when she begins to hike the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT).  As she tells her story of what led up to the trail hike, I found myself both laughing and crying as she shared with raw honesty how the pain and trials of her life developed her into the person she would become by the end of her 1100 mile hike. 

She shares her childhood, which was filled with an abusive father who her brave mother finally left when Cheryl was about 6 years old  and of the step father, Eddie, who loved her “when it mattered”.  She shares the terminal illness and death of her mother and the consequent separation of her family.   As Cheryl so eloquently writes, “without my mother, we weren’t who we had been”.  It was heartbreaking to hear her share the hurt but at the same time, I was encouraged because she shared so openly and with a candor that many of us would try and hide.  She talks freely of her divorce, her spiraling downward through Heroin use and the feeling of being ready to “self disttuct”.  She does not sugar coat any part of her life or her journey but because of the openness of her hurt, she draws the reading along on her journey and brings us each to the place in our lives where we are, at least virtually, at the start of the PCT.  Beginning a journey with a “monster backpack”, unprepared in many ways but taking one step at a time. 

I couldn’t help but recognize the similarities of the baggage of Cheryl’s life with the monster backpack she was bringing along on this journey, in boots too small.   The surprising part to me was that even though she continued to carry the burdens of her life and the monster backpack, somewhere along the way, her load began to get lighter, both literally and figuratively.  

As she begins walking alone she is literally unable to stand fully erect under the weight of the backpack and has grossly underestimated the amount of miles she will be able to cover in a day.  She has thoughts of turning back and walks at times without seeing another person on the trail, listening only to the “song tracks” she has embedded in her mind (her journey was long before the IPOD made it’s appearance).  When she does encounter others along the way, she initially doesn’t want them to see her struggle to put the pack on or take it off so she would not let them assist her.   As she becomes more comfortable on the trail, she allows others to help her lighten the load, including a father son duo who help her rid the supplies that she would not need and I think also as those things fell away, she also began to lose so much of the burden she had been carrying. 

It has been said, that sometimes people go on long hikes, trips, places of solace to find themselves.   I believe Cheryl did find a little of herself along the way but more importantly I believe she learned exactly what she reminded me near the end of her story, “sometimes it’s enough to trust”.