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Naked in Nature
Justina Bagger
Meg’s summer working in Grand Teton National Park in northwest Wyoming was almost at a close when she stumbled across Brian, one of many people who helped define Meg’s spiritually in the summer of 2014.
“Yeah, so I walked down the path to watch the sunset, and there’s a dude sitting by the campground and I said ‘Hey dude! There’s a great spot to watch the sunset right over there and it’s looking like it might be a good one tonight.” The man later identified himself as Brian.
Brian and his dog, Mr. Odin, showed up to watch the sunset several minutes later, and the three of them watched overlooking Jackson Lake.
Rural Wyoming gets cold very quickly at night, and so Meg invited Brian to come
back to her dorm to warm up and then go watch the stars by the boat launch.
“The sky there is so big, man you’d love it. So we saw the Big Dipper and then Brian asked if the Big Dipper is that big in New York, and I said no. There are always shooting stars and stuff like that out here.” Meg said, with an awe-struck look on her face.
Meg says the night was like a movie to her. You would zoom out to a scene of a myriad of bright stars contrasting against the dark sky, and in the bottom of the screen, there’s a lake and two silhouettes of strangers sitting and sharing a night under the stars.
Meg says that when she found Brian’s empty campsite, she was sad, but she says that it was a beautiful night with a beautiful person and that’s what she’s going to take from it. She later found him on Facebook and says that he’s doing well and continues to explore both the United States as well as other countries with Mr. Odin.
Meg’s narcolepsy is what she blames for not being able to see Brian again before he left. Her condition had forced her to take a nap the afternoon that Brian left, and when she woke up, he was no longer there.
The Meg everyone knew before she left for Wyoming would have mentally beaten herself up over not being able to say goodbye, however, this was a different reaction, it showed that she had made progress in taking the good out of things while simultaneously accepting the things she could not change.
The lodge where Meg worked is located aside Jackson lake, it is a glacier lake and is cold but clear and refreshing for swimming in the summer. “I wish I could swim without cataplexying.“ is what Meg wrote in her journal in August of 2014 after she nearly drowned due to a cataplexy episode in the lake.
Meg’s narcolepsy is complicated with cataplexy, a sudden weakening of muscle. Her conditions interfered with her collegiate academics.
School was never hard for Meg. “I had always been a straight-A student, and so to have school be hard was unfamiliar to me. I was stressed and I ate on weird schedules because eating was a trigger for my narcolepsy.” Meg said.
“I’d say it was a setback when [Meg] got diagnosed with narcolepsy in tenth grade,” says Meg’s lifelong friend, Danielle Clifford. “She kept on falling asleep and she wasn’t sure what was causing it.”
Meg struggled being away from home, adjusting to different professors’ grading demands, having them understand that she had narcolepsy, and the complications associated with it.
Meg ended up not continuing with the same academic success she had in high school. She would fall asleep during lectures, and even during tests. The impromptu naps began to take a toll on her grades. Meg’s drive to do well was suffering, and so she decided to take a job opportunity in Wyoming. She felt as if she needed an extended period of time off from school to readjust, and spend time in nature, which had always been a positive constant in her life.
Danielle thought it was kind of a crazy idea, but knowing Foy, as her close friends call her, and knowing that she was extremely passionate about nature and exploring wild land, the job opportunity in Wyoming seemed fitting. Meg was always the type of person to notice little things in nature that other people would probably miss.
“I will never have a better walk to work than I do here.” Was Meg’s journal entry in September. She was constantly in awe of the different vegetation, the animals that lived close to the lodge, and the mountains.
This was the first time she ever saw mountains- real mountains, with snow caps and pine trees. When she got there, in mid July, the snow was still on the steep rocky hills, and their gargantuan size blew Meg’s mind.
“What’s weird about Wyoming is that It’s so flat for just so long and then you just have these giant-ass mountains that just come out of nowhere. They’re just so surreal. They’re just like a postcard.” Meg said.
Meg felt as if she missed seasons this year. She left for Wyoming in mid-July. She didn’t get to experience a hot and sticky summer like the ones back home in Fonda, New York.
Meg also missed fall. “In Grand Teton, most of the trees were pine trees, which remained green all year, as opposed to in New York. In New York in the fall, the mountains turn every color you could expect a leaf to turn.” Even though she describes the upstate New York falls as multicolour, she says that she is glad that she missed it, because it was one more thing that she learned to appreciate more.
Meg said that she had several intense moments with nature while working. One of them was when she observed a storm. She hiked a trail with her friend Brittney. They sat down on the edge of a lake and they saw a storm coming down the mountains. They knew they had to get out of the woods, because you can never really tell how fast the storms travel. The storm gave the mountains a purple overtone, and the rain was heavy enough to hide the mountains in the background. They ran down the trail at a solid pace but the storm just moved so fast. Meg thought the mountains were big, but this storm was bigger. It engulfed the mountains and made waves in the otherwise quiet glacier lake. The wind was powerful, and moved them both physically and mentally.
Several days later, Meg was walking on a desolate path in her favourite sundress, which she describes as better than being naked, especially when she’s high. She was sitting on one of her favourite logs, watching the sunset. She had the urge to remove her clothing, and so she did it. Her friend who happened to be in her vicinity, told her that when he saw the top half of her dress come down, he was out of there. While Meg’s naked body was exposed to nature, she says it felt amazing. She wrote this poem after,
Me and the Earth
the wind
the sun
the water
the Power of nature
the Power of place
the tree next to me (nature)
On her way back to camp she noticed two flowers, “On my walk back there I saw 2 flowers. I don’t even know how I noticed them there. They were two little flowers, right next to each other, just growing together. Everything around them looked as if it were dying (with it being fall and all,) but there were two flowers.”
When Meg returned from Wyoming, she seemed to have gained a sense of fulfillment. She returned with the idea of pursuing a career in ecology, perhaps becoming a park ranger or something of the sort.
Meg’s internal change was not just evident to herself. “I think the Wyoming trip helped her realize that nature is her true passion and happiness. She’s also mentioned that maybe college isn’t right for her. So in a way, maybe the trip helped her realize that. I know that she’ll find her way, whether it’s college or not.” Said Danielle, who noticed that Meg seems to have found more inner peace after her return from the trip.
“I’ve become more open-minded and accepting of the world. I’ve learned a lot about people, and the most important part, I feel, is that everyone has their own issue. When you realize this and actually keep it in your mind before you judge someone else, their actions or words, or anything.” This is one of Meg’s most recent reflections on her trip. She believes that it has given her a newly positive outlook on life.
Meg Foy left for Wyoming needing change. When she returned, it had already happened. “I’m running wild like a river. No more smoke to the lungs, no more booze to the liver. Good herd. Good friends. Good lovin’. Great living!”