What is it in me that's been craving wildness lately? Perhaps as soon as I find myself dressing

appropriately or doing the right thing all the time, I am overwhelmed with the urge to find some

sort of original freedom, to strip down to the wild animal self, to banish my schedule to its

time out corner and just belong to nature again. My dear friends have a little boy who is six and he

loves to be naked. He was recently quoted as saying to his mother, close are the worst thing in the

world. And I think he's on to something. There's something to be said for the ways we constrict ourselves,

define ourselves and limit ourselves when it comes to the performance of being a human being,

schedules, clothes, manners, acceptable behavior. I feel like that six-year-old sometimes

I want to shake it all off. I was thinking earlier about how for as long as I can remember,

I have wanted, I think the word is ease, to feel ease in my skin, in my life. There are a few times

that I've had it without trying, I'll admit, and I'm getting better at cultivating ease as I age.

But when ease has come, it's because I've allowed myself, or been allowed by outside forces,

to be more instinctual, to trust myself, to fight for something or someone I love, to lay down

everything else and focus on what really matters, what feels like the pure instinct of desire.

I love the instinctual nature of attraction, for example, the thing that feels indescribable

and absurd, the strange ache or need or desire to see someone again after only a few hours apart.

None of that makes any sense, but that's the wild part of desire. It absolutely doesn't make any

sense, it just is, it just leads you to some primordial part of yourself, and there you are.

All your human tools rendered useless, ready to heed the siren song. O love, you are so dangerous.

Of course, animal instincts aren't always good, they aren't always the instincts we should follow,

as we are human and prone to things like rage and violence and poor decisions.

Still, sometimes I want to be more like my dog or my cat, who search out their comfort,

...