The Wandering Ranger

I'm looking for new inspiration to write, to share and to illustrate the deeper thoughts and feelings within me.

On a quiet Sunday evening while working on my book, I find myself taking the time away from writing to think about all the adventures I have been graced to witness in my life.  Not that I'm gloating but rather that I feel blessed.  I've been to Canada and Mexico, driven the Alaska Highway 6 times, lived in Germany and Holland and have traveled as far as the middle eastern country of Kuwait.  Each place has had it's unique qualities and differences from one another.  Primarily, those times when I found myself in desert, I longed for the mountains.  Or when I was in the mountains, I longed for the ocean.

My hero is Edward Abbey.  I first read his book when I was a teenager in high school.  My 10th grade biology teacher had given my brother and I the book as an end of year gift.  He didn't do that for many, but I guess he felt a connection with us.  I read the book.  I was intrigued with the experiences a park ranger could have in Arches National Park.  The crudeness.  The dry humor.  The passion.  When I sought to be a writer back in the 80s and 90s, I always found myself falling way short of things to write about.  After all, I wasn't a park ranger in a pretty awesome place like Arches National Park.  What would I have to write about?

But writing is about experiences.  It's what is in us each and every day.  My writing was limited to occasional attempts at journaling typically in the fall season when I felt inspired.  But ultimately, I had been only trying to emulate my hero.  Everything crumbled.  I prayed to become a writer, and the only response I got was "write!".  But I wasn't writing for myself.  I was writing to perform.  Within that, it was never me.  I had lost my voice.

My voice came when I was hired as a ranger in 2015 aboard the glacier boats in Prince William Sound, Alaska.  I started by journaling my experiences.  As I reread my journal of that time, I recognize quickly that I had begun with the same mistakes of the past:  to perform.  But over time, I discovered 30, 50 or 100 pages in, that what I had been writing was in me.  I was finally pulling out from the depths of my soul my inner thoughts and passions.  On occasion, I even found passages I was truly proud of.

Since then, I found myself on a journey I didn't expect.  I couldn't find work locally in southern Oregon, but quickly got picked up by Olympic National Park with job offers from 4 other national parks or monuments that same spring.  I went to Olympic and guided people on nature walks, patio talks, and campground presentations.  I lived on a lake with Western Red Cedar and Douglas Fir as my primary protection from the world around me.  My summer was filled with awe and wonder with the changing weather, the high altitude views and the ability to be in wilderness.  I'd move on to Mount Rainier where I lived in a 19 foot travel trailer with snow falling, leading snow shoe hikes atop of 17 feet of snow, and sitting in a small museum looking out at the winter around me.

Glaciers, mountains, ocean and temperate rainforest.  They were a far cry from the desert solitaire of Arches National Park.  But it was my world, not Abbey's.  I was a wandering ranger.  I had found my voice.



And with that a new inspiration to write, to share and to illustrate the deeper thoughts and feelings within me.