How to picnic your way back to yourself

Or why eating outdoors can be as life-affirming as it comes

Today, a personal essay for my paid subscribers. I like to keep some of my most personal stories behind the paywall because sometimes, restricting audiences feels like freedom. A safe space, as it were.

As a reminder, access to everything at The Sauce can be yours for $5 a month or $50 a year:

My brother and I enjoying a picnic c. 1990

“What do you want in your sandwich? Cheddar? Ham? We’ll get a soup on the go too. Thermos flasks at the ready.”

My brother calls to me from the kitchen as I run around packing a day bag. We have our sights set on a hike at Dinorwic today, an abandoned quarry nestled in the crook of Snowdonia National Park in North Wales.

Dinorwic is a recent TikTok sensation. People come from miles to see the hidden waterfall and emerald-coloured lake. The only access is by trespassing on private land and navigating perilously narrow walkways with steep drops into the excavations below.

One foot wrong doesn’t bear thinking about.

But we’re not going for that. We’re going because it’s just 45 minutes from my brother’s house, and he tells me the nearby hike (the one that didn’t go viral) is incredible.

And I need to move my body.

I’m exhausted. Not just physically but emotionally. Life has become relentless. The uncertainty of a writing career, always wondering if I’ll make enough to pay the bills this month. The imprint of infertility on my psyche. My body is tired of being on high alert all the time.

Walking helps.

Even better — when there is a walk, there is always a picnic. A reason to eat outdoors, perched on a rock, unwrapping sandwiches and sipping flasks of soup. Simple food, but food I look forward to the most.

There is magic in hiking and the picnic that inevitably comes with it. Both nourish the body and the soul in a way I find few other activities can touch.

In other words, you can picnic your way back to yourself. That day, I intended to do exactly that.