Writing About the Wilderness

The trouble with writing about the wilderness is that there is almost none of it left, and so, although more and more writers are born, grow up and appear in print, fewer and fewer can possibly have even an approximate acquaintance with the wild destroyed world on whose splinters we stand.

—Edward Hoagland

I recently found that quote on Susan Albert's Lifescapes blog. It especially appealed to me because I grew up on the edge of the wilderness, and live on the edge of a forest today. Nature and wildlife have always been dear to me, and it's hard for me to imagine not being able to wander in the woods.

Sometime back I wrote this paragraph about the mountains of northern New Mexico:

Those mountains shaped my life and my abiding love for the woods. Alone among the towering pines, I was my own best self, free from all expectations, pressures and competition. I knew even then that the forest had healing powers. The memories from those mountains pull me back to being my own best self, and I always keep them near me in my soul.

Going beyond those mountains, I'm writing stories about exploring the fascinating reeds along the irrigation ditch when I was a preschooler, trips down in the canyon, the smell of pines in the playground, lizards and cactus at Girl Scout day camp and climbing Mt. Wheeler. In later years there is the splendor of the Oregon Coast, Banff, the Austrian alps, penguins in Antarctica, hiking the Milford Track, wild turkeys in my yard . . . the list is nearly endless. I want to share my general appreciation of the wild to perpetuate it in generations to come.

You may also treasure the wilderness. Are you doing your part to preserve it in memory as it is today? Maybe the wilderness isn't part of your legacy, but what about parks, or special gardens? Nature has impacted nearly all of us one way or another. Let the world know what it means to you.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal