Wild woman of the garden challenges us

Okanagan Valley
via internet search

Did I ever tell you about Sherry Blue Sky? She's a member of the online writers' group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads (my favorite online place) and now lives on Vancouver Island (my favorite place in the world).
Sherry and I were born in the same year, and were schoolgirls at the same time and in the same BC town. We swam in the same lake, on the same beaches, at the same Aquatic club, hiked the same hills, and probably sneaked into the same orchards for forbidden fruit.
True.
We even worked for the same small daily paper at different times, but we never met because we had attended different schools.

Island map via internet search

Now Sherry is one of my favorite online friends I've never met. Having moved to the wild west coast of The Island (as we British Columbians call Vancouver Island) and lived with its crashing waves and wild salt smell, and having raised and lived with a wolf-dog for many years, Sherry feels a closeness with nature that I never reached, despite all my hiking and biking.
I moved to the coast, too, but to the "inside" coast, where the waves are subdued by The Island first and then by all the inner islands, reaching the mainland still smelling of ocean, but mixed with the smell of civilization, into the depths of which I commuted each day for work.
So, Sherry hopes that each of us can reach deep down into the primal areas of our souls to bring forth the wildness that still lurks there, despite the patina of the civilized world. This is her challenge to us at the Imaginary Garden this weekend.
Now, Sherry, from the days of our mutual but unshared youth, this song's for you.

Okanagan Valley
via internet search

on a whim we would ride
to the base of a hill
and race each other
on foot
to the top,
then back on our bikes
for one or more hikes
until all our mothers
called stop!
we had free reign
in golden summers
to hike

Okanagan Valley
via internet search

to ride
to swim
to hide
to lie beside
the lake and burn
our faces red.
dangers then
were sunburn
and rattlesnakes
(which we
 couldn't find)
or falls off a bike
or a hill.
moms didn't fret
they didn't know yet
that some day
grandchildren
would face
dangers which they
never thought of
a day
when "wild"
meant something else entirely