A Place to Scream

I keep walking, hoping to find one big enough for mine.

Lately, I find myself pulled from the shore and into the quiet of the tall, ancient pines. As small stones shift beneath my heavy steps, I become aware of the acres and acres embracing me. Still, even here, it feels like there isn’t enough room to breathe.

These places are never vast enough, never secluded enough, to hold the blood-curdling scream I long to release.

My mind wanders, dreaming of what such a place would look like. How wild. How untamed. How distant I would need to be from humanity so that no passerby could hear me—and confuse the noise of release with a cry for help. I imagine what it might feel like to finally let it all out.

Some days, the mere act of imagining it offers relief, and a droplet of pain makes its way to the ground beneath my feet. Other days, shame rises up like fog.

Maybe this is part of your problem, it whispers. Humans aren’t meant to grieve alone, to process alone. You’re still too afraid of being perceived. Still hesitant to let yourself be fully seen.

There are granules of truth in that. But my soul knows it goes deeper.

When I am among the trees and the birds, I feel seen. Nature knows what it is to be stripped raw. To cry out, over and over, in agony, with nothing left to give—and yet still find a way. The snapping turtle loses most of her hatchlings each year. And still, she moves. Slowly. Methodically. Scarred. The tree grows steadily around the rock, even in malnourished, receding soil—her roots exposed.

There is no pressure here to hide wounds.

Perhaps this is why people flock to nature after great loss. Maybe they, too, are searching for a place large enough to hold their pain.

For me, I know that place does not exist on the South Shore of Massachusetts. So I will continue dreaming—of the one so vast, so isolated, I can scream the way I long to.

And until then, I’ll be grateful for each small release I find along these trails—and wonder, quietly as I pass others, how vast a place they would need to hold their screams and if mine even exists.

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