Wild to the Heart: What Makes Your Heart Soar

I have been thoroughly enjoying Rick Bass's collection of tales Wild to the Heart. It didn't take long (perhaps half way through the first story) to feel an instant kinship with Rick. Here is a fellow lover of the wild, stuck living in the city, but finding so much joy in his crazy journeys in the natural world.

Bass is a master at letting the scene dictate the story, in all it's honesty, but with all the affection of a lover. Bass gives voice to the wildness—wildness in the western mountains, in the eastern forests, in the people met along the way. And he quietly weaves a theme through all these stories, a series of questions. Near the end of the book Rick comes closest to an answer—something that sums up the book well, and bears repeating here in full:

If it is wild to your own heart, protect it. Preserve it. Love it. And fight for it, and dedicate yourself to it, whether it's a mountain range, your wife, your husband, or even (heaven forbid) your job. It doesn't matter if it's wild to anyone else: if it's what makes your heart sing, if it's what makes your days soar like a hawk in the summertime, the focus on it. Because for sure, it's wild, and if it's wild, it'll mean you're still free. No matter where you are. 

—Rick Bass, Wild to the Heart, 158