Changing the "How" to Find the "What"

Spending long hours immersed in nature has always played a vital role in my life. When I was a child, my mother took us out for walks down the dunes of Lake Michigan’s shores in the fall, visits to the animals at the nature center in Kalamazoo in the winter, or swims in the New Hampshire lake where my extended family gathered every summer. Every season offered different ways for me to get that fix I needed so much to ground me, and every year, I seemed to need and value it more.

As I grew up, hiking, kayaking, and cross-country skiing offered new ways to explore the outdoors. The how, the when, and the where didn’t seem to matter. The only thing that did was the “what”- being able connect with something deep, and sure, and soothing to my restless soul. I could feel my heart slow down, my mood shifting with every step. It was such a relief to get away from my talkative, mind-racing self and get to know my quiet, sensory self out there, where there was always so much to observe.

After college, I discovered a new and exciting way to spend much longer periods outdoors. I would find a place that had something I couldn’t put my finger on, something happening just beneath the surface of my awareness, and build a sculpture that would bring it to light. I’d use whatever was around- grass stalks to show me breezes floating by, ice shards to catch the shifting sunlight, turning leaves to reveal the approach of winter…I didn’t really care what I had to use- I just needed something to give me that “what,” that secret juice that brought the place to life for me, that connected me to it and to that bigger, deeper sense of myself.

But then, my daughters were born, and my interest in connecting with that "what" outdoors faded as my passion for connecting with these incredible new "whos" grew. I couldn't imagine being away from them for a day, let alone a week. A month was unimaginable! And so, quite quickly, I gave up that addiction, that obsession, and have never regretted the decision for a minute.

I did, however, walk away from a big part of myself. I spent a year or two with the strange feeling that I had lost something, as if a limb no one else could see had been amputated, but I didn’t really understand what giving my art up had cost me. After a few years, I channeled my creative energies into writing, which was a fantastic and timely decision, as my first project was a screenplay about fathers trying to figure out how to raise their children. My next and current project, a novel about dreaming that I wrote with daily input from my daughters, brought us even closer, and gave me even greater satisfaction.

Yet something was still missing. The girls knew it. They’d tell me, “It’s okay, Daddy- we’re old enough! You can go back in the forest!” but I didn’t have the will or the guts to leave them for however long it would take to get that strange connection back. And what if it didn’t come back? What if I found out I’d become deaf to nature’s voice, a voice whose whispers I'd listened to effortlessly for days on end before? It was too frightening to face that loss, so I stayed out of the deep wild, and away from that wild part deep inside myself.

It was my wife, Mim, an artist with a photographic eye much sharper than my sculptor’s ear, who led me back in years later. Her habit of carrying her camera everywhere, of using it to transform the simplest of moments into ones of deep and lasting value, convinced me to pick up a camera, too. I soon found myself reaching through the lens for something my eyes couldn’t see without it, for some fleeting effect of light, some pattern that only the rectangular frame would reveal…and I began to find it. I soon found it everywhere I went, and it got easier and easier, too. The more I looked, the more I found, and the faster I found a way to capture it.

I became obsessed, dropping my plans for starting a new career to follow geese through the foggy Fens, or trek up into the snow-dusted hills of Middlesex Fells at dawn. I shot ice floes in Plymouth on a day so cold my camera locked up and my fingers froze inside the gloves. But it felt great. I was back. That wild man, the one who knew where to find the “what” he needed most, was back, and he was grinning at me and my camera. I was glad to see him, too, glad that I hadn't lost him forever.

I’m not the only one who needs to reconnect with a part of themselves that’s been neglected, lost, or left behind. Most of my clients are very successful in parts of their lives. They have good jobs, good careers, good prospects, and yet...something is missing, something they can't always name when we first start working together. But soon, with careful questioning, their "what" begins to emerge for both of us to see. Even then, though, many shake their heads, convinced that they can't have it because all the "hows" they've already tried didn't work. They want it, but often believe they either can't get it, or they'd have to give up too much to chase after it.

But I know different because I've found a way back, a way in that lets me have my fix and my family, and I know they can, too. I never tell them which "how" to try, or which "what" to pursue. Instead, I help them listen to the voice inside urging them to try new ways of thinking about it and of going after it. The coaching moments I live for are when my clients realize that opening themselves up to approaches they've never tried before is bringing them closer and closer to those things they've always wanted, but thought were out of their reach. I love watching them reconnect.

We all have to let go of some beliefs we’ve held onto for a long, long time, especially the ones about what we can't do, or have, or achieve. And when we do, we just might find that something even better can take their place. Something wild that's grinning back at us in the mirror.

All photographs by Pratt Bennet

For a sampling of Mim's inspiring photographs at www.mimspeak.com, click here: