Scavenging Beauty

The transformative memoir of a woman who dedicates herself to walking every street in her county to heal from decades of trauma As a social worker in California, Angelica Glass spent her career helping families struggling with poverty, abuse, and neglect. When she realized that the stress of her job was becoming overpowering, she turned to walking as an outlet. Yet what began as a chance to exercise her body turned into something much more: a years-long odyssey in which Glass drew on the cathartic beauty of nature, the discipline of exercise, and the healing power of reflection to confront her own past. The more she walked, the more she found what she rarely had growing up: solace and forgiveness. One of eight children born to parents who lived with addiction and mental illness, Glass had survived privation, hunger, and abuse, and for a time lived on the streets and in foster care. Despite these challenges, she eventually finished high school, graduated from college, established stable, long-term relationships, and raised two sons. In the process, she learned that it was by drawing on nature to heal herself—by scavenging beauty on her terms—that she began to understand that we do not have to be prisoners of our pasts. By turns intimate and sweeping, evocative and eye-opening, Scavenging Beauty is a powerful and hopeful celebration of how nature can help us heal from within.