Wherever I Dare, I Belong
It’s been over a week alone at the cabin when I stumble across the headline about Julieta Hernandez, the 38-year-old clown cycling through Brazil to reach her mother’s village in Venezuela. On the day I learn of her murder, I’m still waiting for the first big snow to fall. Everyone I run into asks if I’m ready. “It’s coming,” they say with raised eyebrows. The woods around the cabin are muted and still with a few inches of snow from the day before. Except for the kraa and wingbeats of a pair of ravens, the consummate quiet is so profound it reminds me of my first pitch-black darkness deep down in a Belizean cave.
But it’s not just the snow I’m waiting for. Deep down under the determination to embrace this experience with its beauty and hard knocks, I wait for this place to work its magic on the undercurrent of anxiety that’s been clenched in my body for years.
Learning what they did to Julieta casts a shadow over the serenity of my surroundings. Her story, like many before hers, is a grim reminder of the risks women face simply by daring to explore the world. Yet, it’s here, in the quiet solitude of the woods, that I seek refuge from the weight of this reality. My mind wanders to all the places I’ve ever dared to be. From the first time I insist on crossing Balboa Street alone, to the trepid thrill of being where no one would know to look for me on a summer night at the threshold between high school and college. Everywhere I dare to go I meet women who admonish my selfish naivete and women who affirm my foray into untethered freedom. And every year I read about women whose lives are taken from them while doing their version of the same.
Julieta’s story isn’t new, except that I am where I am when I learn about her for the first time. So I hop in the car to visit my neighbor under the guise of needing a shower to distract from the uneasiness in my chest. By the time I finish my first hot shower in nearly two weeks, thick snowflakes are falling in straight lines like anchors from the sky and the sun has set behind the tree line. I kick myself for losing track of time. Part of me wants to delay leaving the comfort of company, but I know the longer I wait the more intimidating the trip back to my cabin will be.
Sensing my uneasiness, my neighbor offers to let me stay the night but I’m determined to return home, even as thoughts of Julieta ride the current of stories they told my ancestors of the evil wilderness. There is a river of rememberings running through my veins of women who vanish in the woods, eaten by the dark.
By the time I arrive at the first gate, it’s dark and the snow has already accumulated enough to make driving difficult. It takes three attempts to get over the small berm and through the first gate. Driving up to the second gate my headlights illuminate prisms as they fall, casting a smooth carpet of sparkling white ahead. I reach the clearing by the meadow, park, and get ready for the three-quarter-mile trek to the cabin.
I click my headlamp on and step out into the snow. My imagination is as vivid as the meadow is quiet. I feel exposed to all the things I cannot see that might be there. With my lamp on I feel even more exposed and vulnerable in the darkness, but just as I start walking, the full moon begins to rise above the tree line at the far side of the meadow and suddenly the anxiety in my center is overtaken by the night beauty of this place.
I stop walking and let the silence enfold me. I turn my headlamp off and let the moonlight light the way. But first I just stand there, at the edge of a meadow surrounded by evergreens as the snow falls and the moon rises. When I start walking again, I’m not in a hurry, instead, I walk as quietly as possible. My breath slows and my gaze glances upwards, no longer preoccupied by what may be lurking off the path. I let the snow land on my cheeks and in my open mouth and feel a wide grin stretch across my face.
As I make my way deeper into the trees, instead of feeling swallowed by a dark foreboding forest I cross into a new world of wonder. I feel known by this place welcoming me home and I know at that moment that nothing here will harm me.
When I’m greeted by the warm glow of my cabin light nestled cozily beneath the canopy I feel like the doe and her fawns returning to their bed and the fox returning to its den.
This cabin, these woods, and the journey here have taught me that to dare is not just to venture into the unknown, but to claim a space where one's soul resonates with the rhythms of the earth. The faces of Julieta Hernandez and others smiling in photos taken during journeys fraught with both beauty and peril flash in my mind. All our stories are interwoven with those of the natural world.
In the silence of the woods, I've found that belonging isn't about a specific place, but a feeling that arises when we're in harmony with our surroundings. The realization that this sense of belonging is a gift settles over me like a warm blanket. It's a reminder that our connection to the earth and each other is woven from the threads of our shared experiences, our dreams, and our unyielding resilience.
Wherever I dare, I belong—not because the world makes it easy, but because within me is the unbreakable bond to all that is wild and free, to the ancestral wisdom that guides me, and to the unwavering belief that in the heart of nature, we find our truest selves.
Organizations fighting femicide in Brazil
The Caring Family Foundation: Provides support and assistance to women and children who have fled domestic violence. This includes medical, social, psychological, housing, and legal needs, as well as employability courses.
Brazil Foundation's Women's Fund: Promotes girls' empowerment in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
The Mothers of May: Works with the Network Against Violence in Rio de Janeiro and the Campaign “React or You will be Killed” in Bahia.