Knocked off her feet after twenty years in public health nursing, Iris Graville quit her job and convinced her husband and their thirteen-year-old twin son and daughter to move to Stehekin, a remote mountain village in Washington State’s North Cascades. They sought adventure; she yearned for the quiet and respite of this community of eighty-five residents accessible only by boat, float plane, or hiking. Hiking Naked chronicles Graville’s journey through questions about work and calling as well as how she coped with ordering groceries by mail, black bears outside her kitchen window, a forest fire that threatened the valley, and a flood that left her and her family stranded for three days.
This memoir of “seeking, not escaping” speaks to the hearts of those longing to be free from modern constraints—work, money, ambition, stress of all sorts—to find their bliss, wherever it might be. For Graville, in 1993, that means listening to the urgings of her heart and leaving her job as a public health nurse in Bellingham, WA, and moving her family to Stehekin, a remote village near North Cascades National Park. What resonates throughout is her deep connection to Quakerism; here a gentle, quiet spirituality that encourages places and periods of silence rather than imposing rigid external demands. As her husband and children agree to this experiment, over the two years, all come in their own way to say, “I thought I knew about powerlessness,” only to find that the rigors of living life simply require letting go of much more than they ever could have imagined. Graville concludes that “Far from feeling deprived, we found over and over again the riches of attending to what’s truly important.” VERDICT: Reading this expressive and beautifully written memoir is to experience one’s own quest toward self-discovery.
In this lovely memoir of a time in transition, Iris Graville looks at the themes of what it means to unearth and follow an inner calling while yet responding to the demands of daily living and providing. In her own words she “attends to what is important”, stripping down to a naked awareness that “the smallest touch, the briefest contact, the quietest diligence can make a difference – can change the course of a river.” The reader will experience the difficulties and joys of living in the wilds in the remote village of Stehekin and will perhaps undergo with Iris the rich and nourishing journey of coming to clearness and balance.