Where Friendship Meets the Wild: On Seasons, Belonging, and the Beauty That Holds Us

Over the weekend, I drove down to the Hill Country to visit my friends who recently bought their dream home. Josi and her husband have become the kind of people I now think of as family — the rare ones you could call at midnight, and they’d drive three hours without hesitation. The kind of friends who don’t just love you, but grow with you.

I met Josi years ago at a women’s service organization. We sat next to each other, made some small comment that turned into a long laugh, and before I knew it, we were talking for hours. It was the first time I ever wondered if soulmates could come in the form of friendship. We shared so much — similar childhood landscapes, the same profession, a love of nature, hiking, books, and wonderfully weird TV. She has been the friend who loves unconditionally, but also the friend who challenges me, the way I challenge her. A mutual sharpening. A mutual softening.

After being cooped up during the ice storm, stepping onto their land felt like a reset to my entire nervous system. The Hill Country has a way of holding you without saying a word. The air is different there — quieter, but not empty. Alive, but not demanding. We walked through their property, the ground still damp from winter, the cedar and oak trees standing like old sentinels. Deer moved through the brush with the kind of ease I envy. Birds stitched color across the sky. Even the wind felt like it had something to say.

And maybe part of why it all felt so familiar is because I’ve loved nature for as long as I can remember. Since I was a little girl, I’ve felt a connection to the world outside — oceans that felt endless, mountains that made me feel small in the best way, birds that seemed to carry messages, trees that felt like old friends. Sunshine, cold air, fall leaves, the smell of rain — I’ve loved it all. Nature has always been a place where I felt both grounded and expanded, like I belonged without having to earn it.

What I’ve always admired is how effortlessly nature accepts change. Seasons shift. Leaves fall. Water rises and recedes. Animals migrate. Nothing clings to what was. Nothing resists what’s next. Meanwhile, we humans fight change with everything in us — gripping, negotiating, bargaining with life as if we can hold it still. But nature reminds me that change isn’t a punishment; it’s a rhythm. A cycle. A returning.

I’ll admit, I was sad when Josi and her husband moved earlier this year. I had grown used to popping in and out of their home, sharing meals, stories, and the kind of everyday moments that make friendship feel like a warm, lived-in sweater. But walking their land helped me understand something I already knew: everything has seasons. Part of loving someone is supporting the season they’re stepping into, even when it shifts the shape of your own.

They’re empty nesters now, just like me. They’re dreaming about their next chapter, and this beautiful home in the Hill Country is part of that unfolding. And I’m genuinely happy for them — not the polite kind of happy, but the deep, settled kind that comes from knowing someone you love is exactly where they’re meant to be.

As we walked, I kept thinking about one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems, Wild Geese. 

Wild Geese 

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair,

yours,

and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

- over and over announcing your place in the family of thing.

There’s something profoundly comforting about that reminder. Even in loneliness, even in transition, even in the ache of missing what used to be — the world keeps calling us back into belonging. The geese keep flying. The trees keep growing. The deer keep moving through the brush. The world goes on, not to leave us behind, but to invite us back into the rhythm of things.

Nature doesn’t rush us. It doesn’t ask us to be cheerful or productive. It simply offers presence. It holds space. It reminds us that we are part of something larger, something ancient and ongoing.

Friendship, at its best, does the same.

It doesn’t demand constant proximity. It doesn’t collapse under the weight of change. Instead, it expands. It adapts. It finds new ways to stay connected, even across miles and seasons.

This weekend reminded me that the most meaningful parts of life often happen in the quiet moments — walking through trees, watching deer graze, laughing in a kitchen that isn’t yours but still feels like home. It reminded me that nature and friendship are two of the most faithful companions we have. They both teach us how to stay with ourselves. They both remind us that we belong.

Maybe that’s the lesson of this season of life: belonging isn’t about closeness; it’s about connection. It’s about presence, and the quiet knowing that we are held — by the people who love us, by the landscapes that steady us, and by the world that keeps going, inviting us back into the family of things.