Some of my favorite childhood memories were in the outdoors.
My family camped almost every weekend throughout the summer, and we had a permanent campsite called Cherokee 3. Once I was old enough to tell time, my mom gave me a watch, and that watch meant freedom. As long as I knew when I needed to be back for lunch and dinner, I was pretty much free to disappear into the woods.
Sometimes I would find another kid at the campground to play with, but just as often I went by myself, completely absorbed in whatever I found along the way. I would follow the creek as far as I could until I eventually reached another campsite and had to turn around. I caught crawfish, watched water bugs dance across the surface, listened to the wind moving through the pine trees and explored every little place that caught my attention.
Eventually, I knew those trails by heart. I knew which rocks were solid beneath my feet, which ones would shift when I stepped on them and which ones were likely to be slippery. There was a steep part of one trail with a large exposed root, and I knew exactly where to grab it and use it almost like a handle to pull myself up. If I realized I was running late, I could make my way back through those woods at what felt like record speed because I knew exactly where to put my feet.
I grew up in the Finger Lakes region of Western New York, where Native American history was very much part of the history around me, and I remember being fascinated by it from an early age. Even the name of our campsite meant something to me. For some reason, I felt a particular sense of pride that Cherokee was part of its name. I couldn’t have told you why. I just did.
I also remember imagining myself moving through the woods like a Native American—agile and sure-footed, knowing the land well enough to move through it without having to think about every step. I’m sure some of that came from the stories and history I grew up around, but there was something about the idea that appealed to me even then.
Looking back, I realize I was learning all kinds of things without thinking of them as things to learn. I was learning the terrain and the water, noticing the trees and the weather, and becoming familiar with the rhythms of one particular place simply because I spent so much time in it. Mostly, I think I was learning how to pay attention.
Many years later, when I began opening myself more intentionally to my intuitive experiences, I started seeing a Native American man. Eventually, he became the first guide whose identity I felt I was able to confirm.
That’s another story, and one I want to tell carefully, because the person I came to believe I was seeing turned out to be a historical figure—and Cherokee.
When I look back now, there are several pieces I can’t help but notice. I grew up surrounded by the Native American history of Western New York. Our campsite happened to be called Cherokee 3, a name I felt strangely proud of even as a child. Decades later, I would find myself living in North Carolina, a state with deep Cherokee history of its own. And then, after I began opening myself more intentionally to my intuitive experiences, the first guide whose identity I felt I was able to confirm turned out to be Cherokee.
I don’t know what, if anything, connects those things. Maybe some of them are coincidence. Maybe some are threads I can only see looking backward. I’m not sure I need to decide. I just find it interesting that something I felt drawn to so early in my life would find its way back into my story in ways I never could have anticipated.
What I do know is that those woods became part of me long before I understood just how important my connection to nature would eventually become. At the time, I wasn’t looking for signs or meaning. I was just a kid with a watch, a creek to follow, and enough freedom to find my own way home.
