Sarah Goldsmith- Wild (Outside Reading)

 Throughout the duration of this class, I have been reading Wild by Sheryl Strayed for another class. Wild is about Strayed's through hike on the Pacific Crest Trail and her journey to move on and process the death of her mother. While the narrative itself is really engaging, I have noticed some common themes that we have discussed in the class on her through hike. The first of which is 'communitas'. Strayed, while hiking primarily by herself, finds people on the trail who would look out for her, even people she has never met. At one point in the book she discusses how she hikes up on a person, but she recognizes him from the trail log. They greet each other like they have known each other their whole lives.

The other theme I noticed was her reason for hiking the PCT. When we watched the documentary on the Camino de Santiago, It was shown how common it was for people to ask why you were hiking the Camino. Most people had a reason that typically had to do with them processing a major life event. In Strayed's case, she was doing hard drugs following her mothers death, and she wanted a way to get out. She needed to process everything in order to move on with her life and the PCT provided that to her.