Explorations in the Wilderness of Nature and Relationships
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ABSTRACT PEAKS AND VALLEYS: EXPLORATIONS IN THE WILDERNESS OF NATURE AND RELATIONSHIPS The following is a collection of personal essays that uses nature (in the form of the writer’s own experiences in nature, as well as representations of nature as found in popular and literary culture) as a vehicle through which to explore identity, as well as relationships (both human-to-human relationships, as well as humankind’s larger relationship to the natural world). Gilliann Mar Hensley May 2017 PEAKS AND VALLEYS: EXPLORATIONS IN THE WILDERNESS OF NATURE AND RELATIONSHIPS by Gilliann Mar Hensley A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in the College of Arts and Humanities California State University, Fresno May 2017 APPROVED For the Department of English: We, the undersigned, certify that the thesis of the following student meets the required standards of scholarship, format, and style of the university and the student's graduate degree program for the awarding of the master's degree. Gilliann Mar Hensley Thesis Author John Hales (Chair) English Steven Church English John Beynon English For the University Graduate Committee: Dean, Division of Graduate Studies AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER'S THESIS I grant permission for the reproduction of this thesis in part or in its entirety without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provides proper acknowledgment of authorship. X Permission to reproduce this thesis in part or in its entirety must be obtained from me. Signature of thesis writer: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A great many people have been instrumental in helping me along in my journey toward completing this collection. First and foremost, I’d like to thank the chair of my committee, John Hales, for his guidance and feedback throughout my writing process, as well as for encouraging me to pursue a creative writing path in the first place. I’d also like to thank my other committee members, Steven Church and John Beynon, for their feedback and support, and for being amazing professors from whom I’ve learned a great deal. I’m grateful, too, to all my peers in the MFA program, whose comments both inside and outside of the workshop environment have been incredibly helpful in developing these essays into what they are today. And, of course, I’d like to thank my partner Matt, for being incredibly supportive both emotionally and creatively, and for helping me over many hurdles during the writing of this manuscript. Finally, I’d like to thank my family for always encouraging my artistic endeavors over the years, and, in many ways, for helping my passion for writing to take root. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PART I. RISK .......................................................................................................... 1 ON RISK, OR A COMPLICATED LOVE AFFAIR .......................................... 2 VICARIOUS SURVIVAL ................................................................................. 12 UNIMPEDED ON THE TRAIL ........................................................................ 23 OVERNIGHT IN THE GRAND CANYON ..................................................... 33 CONNECTION AND DISCONNECTION IN NORTH AMERICA’S LOWEST GEOLOGICAL POINT ............................................................... 49 PART II. SALVAGE.............................................................................................. 60 TOP 5 OUTDOOR DESTINATIONS FOR ATTEMPTING TO SALVAGE YOUR FAILING RELATIONSHIP ......................................... 61 CLUTTER .......................................................................................................... 77 WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND ........................................................................... 86 PART III. SURVIVAL ......................................................................................... 100 CONTEMPLATING THE AUTHENTIC IN THE MODERN ZOO .............. 101 ON GLAMPING .............................................................................................. 114 GOING IT ALONE .......................................................................................... 123 PART I. RISK 2 ON RISK, OR A COMPLICATED LOVE AFFAIR In the early-evening light of my living room I watched Emile Hirsch, playing Christopher McCandless in Sean Penn’s 2007 adaptation of Krakauer’s Into the Wild, as he flipped hurriedly through his field guide, looking from plant- to-guide, guide-to-plant, slowly coming to the realization that he had, in fact failed in his mission to survive alone out in the Alaskan wilderness. That he had eaten the wrong thing. He wept loudly in the rusted blue and white Fairfanks City transit bus he’d called home for a little over four months. I sat close to my then-husband Fernando on our sandy-colored couch, my legs tucked under me, the black and white tuxedo cat, Artemis, curled up into a warm, vibrating ball of fuzz by my feet. The soundtrack of the film and Emile’s voice filled the room. “What a dumbass,” Fernando scoffed, breaking our silence, his light brown face faintly illuminated in the pale glow of the television screen. “Wait—what?” I glanced over at him. He reclined there next to me, with his feet kicked up on the glass-topped coffee table in front of us, a beer in hand. “McCandless, he was an idiot. Totally unprepared, had no idea what he was getting into. No plan, no map. NO MAP! You always bring a map.” His scruffy, normally boyish face was set in a seriousness amplified by the shifting shadows from the television’s light. Turning my head away, I gazed at the screen for a moment in thought, watching Emile-as-McCandless, his figure gaunt and frail from lack of food or the ability to keep it down, drag himself across the ground of the bus site, determined to carry on. Hopeful, perhaps, that he might make it out after all. 3 “I dunno. I kind of admire him,” I replied, my eyes fixed to the screen. “He had convictions, dedication and stuff. Something he needed to work through, a goal he needed to accomplish. I mean, he spent all that time on the road and out in the wild doing shit pretty much on his own. He just messed up. It could happen to anyone.” Fernando shook his head firmly, taking a long draw from his bottle while staring at the screen. “I have zero sympathy for the guy,” he finally said, glancing at me with his dark brown—almost black—eyes. “You just don’t take risks like that. You don’t go into a situation like that unprepared. And he was not prepared for Alaska.” * Though I could understand Fernando’s perspective—since he always advocated for the use of checklists and preplanned routes, of maps and emergency kits and back-up plans—part of me, just like that night, refuses to agree with his assessment of McCandless’ actions. It seems too easy to dismiss the death as the result of mere stupidity or naivety, without at least considering his willingness to put his life at risk—to throw himself so completely into something so he could come to some deeper understanding of himself, and the world, and his place in it. After all, life involves a certain amount of risk, and we dedicate so much of our time to the act of assessing that risk, weighing the odds of any given outcome. And, for the most part, our gambles work out. But it bothered Fernando deeply, it seemed, that the young man had died—at least in his mind—a needless, avoidable death. Then again, it would appear that way to him. My ex-husband religiously watches programs like Survivorman and Man vs. Wild, prides himself on his ability to troubleshoot and problem-solve, is careful and meticulous, and might forget his wallet on an average day, but would double-, triple-, quadruple-check 4 the hiking packs and gear before setting out on any sort of wilderness excursion. The kind of guy that wouldn’t even take off on a road trip without a carefully crafted itinerary—no room for spontaneity. But not me. I just don’t have the patience for all that. That isn’t to say that all his preparation and planning went unappreciated, or that I’ve some kind of death wish. I like to think that I have some sense of self- preservation. Besides, I’ve spent most of my life in relative safety, never worrying about all that much. Yet the very idea of risk carries with it a seductive quality, a high that many people—myself included—chase and chase and chase. Each risk a challenge, each challenge a gamble. People don’t gamble because it’s a safe bet, after all. With gambling comes risk: play well and the reward is pure pleasure, and more money than you began with, but play badly and you’re shit out of luck. And I think that every hike into the wild is a similar kind of gamble, a similar kind of risk, no matter how prepared—just as poker is as much a game of chance as it is of skill. If I do everything right—if I play well—then I survive. If not, well, we know how that turns out. But Fernando, in all our time together, never really gambled, with his life or anything else. Even in the few visits to Las Vegas that we made during our marriage, I could only coax him into the most cautious of gambling—never more than twenty dollars, nothing more than slots. He never seemed to see the point in risking anything more, content to sit quietly, drinking, smoking, and feeding dollars into the glowing, ringing machines. Safe. Boring. And I'd sit there, watching poker and blackjack players through the smoky haze of the casino, with an urge to just say fuck it, to walk over and throw money down and see what happens, despite my complete inability to play any of those games. I simply want to give in to the urge to risk it all, though I never have quite given in. 5 But it's the same kind of urge I get when I think about venturing out into the backcountry, where real dangers might present themselves. In those moments, I never think of how ill-prepared I might be for such an endeavor, or of all the possible outcomes of my decisions.