Vachon Imagined

Behind our house, we have woods that go on for miles. A few years ago, when I lost my job, I would spend hours back there—crying, walking, sometimes both. I would kneel on the stump of a tree and let myself fully unravel, thinking, oh my God, please no one pass by right now. I was mortified and undone at the same time.

But there, beneath the career that had left me dizzy and then abandoned me, I cried hard. I cried for everything.

If a psychologist had stumbled upon me in those days, notebook in hand, they would have had a field day. They would have analyzed me, categorized me, searched for patterns, traced childhood wounds, attached labels, and tried to fit my grief into a framework that made sense. Adjustment disorder. Identity crisis. Loss. Trauma response. Depression. Anxiety. Perhaps all of the above.

And they would not have been entirely wrong.

But they would not have been entirely right either.

Because what was happening wasn’t merely psychological. It wasn’t a symptom to be managed or a behavior to be understood. Something deeper was taking place.

Something not only pathological, but transformative.

An entire image of myself was dying.

The career. The competence. The certainty. The future I thought I was building. The woman I believed myself to be.

And when those things began to collapse, the grief didn’t stay politely inside the boundaries of a single event. It reached backward into old disappointments, old fears, old losses, old dreams. Everything arrived at once, demanding to be felt.

This wasn’t the polite kind of crying. This was the kind that strips you down, tears through every image you’ve built of yourself, and keeps going until there’s nothing left to hold onto.

Pain is an empty word when it isn’t recognized for what it truly is. It rips through your facades and asks:

Are you here now?

Are you willing to see?

Are you willing to stay?

Nature, somehow, knows how to receive what humans often cannot. It doesn’t argue with your mystery. It doesn’t try to fix you or rank your suffering. It simply holds you. Quietly. Without judgment. Without commentary. Just there—receiving you at your weakest and, in doing so, giving you back enough strength to take the next step, and then the next dignity.

As I was walking my dog through those same woods yesterday, where shade softens the heat and the sound of water and birds replaces the noise of everything else, a hawk flew directly in front of us.

It was sudden. My dog startled, then slowed, drawn to a branch as the hawk folded its wings into itself and settled. For a moment, everything became still.

I stopped and watched. Then I closed my eyes, just to feel it differently—not just see it, but sense it. There was something unmistakably intelligent in it. The same intelligence, I thought, that moves through me. Through everything.

And I thought about how much is missed when we rush past the world, or reduce it to something to use or conquer. Some people miss this entirely. Others would kill for sport, or fame, or nothing at all, never realizing what they are standing inside of.

Because what nature reveals is not performance. It is presence. Raw, honest, unfiltered presence. No permission asked. No apology given.

Just life being itself—and being you at the same time.