TALES FROM A FAR NORTH FOREST

Polly down in the bush

OUR FOREST SHOULD come with a warning: “Bush growth is contagious!” The once-grazed hillside across the valley is not the only proof that nature will replace cleared surfaces with sprouting cover when left to its own devices. This summer, my armpits also offer evidence that spreading bush proliferates. With a sizable branch of barefooted, self-sufficient, au natural characters springing from the Far North genus, it was possibly inevitable hairy armpits would present among the local population of women. Initially, social conditioning saw me view this as ugly. It was even slightly shocking when various friends raised their arms and exposed generous thickets of dark body hair. I may have looked away quickly. Yet these were frequently women I admired a lot — there was something inherently free-spirited, strong and earthy about them. Over time, their axillary undergrowth invited questioning of my relationship with the razor. Why had I been shaving my armpits since puberty? Once upon a time, it had marked a weird sort of initiation into developing adulthood. But since then? How had I picked up the message that armpit baldness had its place on a woman’s beauty checklist? And what would my pits look like if I let them go?

After 12 months of growth, I’m presenting my own bushy groves to the world this summer, and I like them very much. Part of the pleasure stems from me defining for myself what constitutes beauty. Sometimes when I raise bare arms, I sense others flinch and recoil from my unexpected crop. I’m unapologetic. As an adult woman, what did you expect? Maybe it’s come from living on the edge of wilderness for so long, but the foresting of my underarms feels like another step in the rewilding of me. There’s a deep magnificence to the world that sings like bubbling joy through my heart when I’m fully present to it. Suck at the quicksilver stream in the gully, and the icy taste is pure aliveness, fresh in a vein. Welcome the southerly like a traveler as it’s passing over the ridge, and you’ll catch the scent of mountains and ocean infused on its breath. On moonless nights when stars cut the darkness as sharp as lasers, deep space begins where your feet meet with Earth, and the whole forest’s heartbeat surrounds you. Nature is always calling me home when I stop to listen.

Rewilding is an act of remembering and reconnecting. Bald underarms aren’t a barrier to authenticity, but for me, bushy hollows are a reminder to keep straddling boundaries between the cultivated and untamed and trust my inner voice. It’s nothing to do with clichéd assumptions of radicalism, activism or feminism. Will the bushes spread? Not outwards in a she-wolf pelt across my body, but at least my daughter sees there is a choice when her own tufts start to sprout.

Now aged 10, Vita’s become selective about when to be a child and when to disdainfully claim she’s too old for the rallying cries to play from her hopeful brother. “Don’t lose the magic,” I warn. Freshly seven, Zendo’s still thoroughly entranced with the world, summoning us frequently to marvel at creation. He remains more puppy than child, leaping at life in a frolicking caper and testing everything’s durability as he sinks in metaphorical teeth. Sometimes we venture on walks designed to relieve the child of some of his bounce. Whinnying and nickering joyously, Zen kicks up his heels. Instead of reducing his energy, the rest of us catch it instead. Reaching the far side of our valley, we turn for home, racing past wild foxgloves rising like sun-pinkened spears along the track. It’s summer’s pull, rising us into peaks of exuberance. I love the sense of promise at this time of year, with long golden days stretching ahead and a thousand plans hatching. High on sunshine and rising sap, we celebrate the season’s arrival as the forest, so water-logged, damp-black and decomposing during winter, surrounds us in shimmering, bushy green.