Sometimes life is wild enough and what you long for is orderliness.

It was my first trip to England, and I gazed at them from the plane window as we approached the airport: those lovely green patches–emerald, lime and sage, overlaid with intersecting threads of juniper or pine, creating a systematic grid. Hedgerows.

As we circled, I relaxed at the sight of these symmetrical contours. Someone is in control here, I thought. They have a handle on things. This will be a calm place for my unruly thoughts to fall in line.

“I’ll put the kettle on,” she said. I was welcomed with the comforting ritual of tea and biscuits, and there would be a cup waiting outside my bedroom as I fought jetlag the next morning. Everything pleasing and practical.

I sipped my reviving drink. Here the wild could be tamed.