This piece was written for the Olympic National Park Newspaper - The Bugler. I don't know if the park will like it. But I do.
I try to go to the beach every day.
As a coastal park ranger here in Olympic National Park, going to the beach is my job. But I'd go anyway, even if it wasn't.
There's just something about watching the waves. Something about the constant coming and going, the powerful crashing, the fine mist the floats up and away from the cresting water. Something about the sand that's never in the same place twice and the way you can feel the salt and moisture hanging in the air.
There's something about knowing this place is always changing and yet, somehow, always the same. It draws me to this wild coastline as it draws so many others.
The contradiction of wanting things to change while wanting them to remain the same, while a little confusing, is not really surprising. Most of us are not comfortable in an environment that is always changing. We have a routine with expectations. We like knowing that we have control over our lives - where we live, what we eat, what we do at work. We know what we like and what we don't like. Change means inconvenience, discomfort, or effort. Change is hard.
And yet change is what gives meaning to our lives. Babies are born. Loved ones die. We fall in love. Our hearts get broken. We learn. We forget. We are constantly bombarded by the world around us and all it has to offer, and it makes us feel alive.
And so our love of the coast makes sense. It is a place of extremes - where one world meets another. Violence meets tranquility. The known meets the unknown.
It is a place where change is expected and welcomed.
It is a place where change is easy.
As a park ranger, I can't help but wonder if this place would hold the same mystique if it weren't protected. Would the intrusion of human-caused change destroy this magical balance?
The same instinct that spurs me to pluck discarded water bottles and candy wrappers from the sand tells me that a car on the beach, a house on the hill, a film of oil on the water would destroy the very essence of what this wonderland offers us.
The same instinct tells me that if we as a society do not fight to protect this place by doing whatever little thing we can do - supporting the protection of wild places from development, knowing where our watersheds drain, or even just picking up trash as we walk the beach - this balanced world of embraceable change may disappear only to be replaced by yet another thing that has changed for the worse.
Mahatma Gandhi once said, "We must be the change we wish to see in the world."
And so I try to go to the beach every day.
I go to remind myself that change can be good. I go to remind myself of what I'm protecting. And, as I join the others staring out at the miles upon miles of waves breaking on the Olympic coast, I go to remind myself that I'm not doing it alone.
I try to go to the beach every day.
As a coastal park ranger here in Olympic National Park, going to the beach is my job. But I'd go anyway, even if it wasn't.
There's just something about watching the waves. Something about the constant coming and going, the powerful crashing, the fine mist the floats up and away from the cresting water. Something about the sand that's never in the same place twice and the way you can feel the salt and moisture hanging in the air.
There's something about knowing this place is always changing and yet, somehow, always the same. It draws me to this wild coastline as it draws so many others.
The contradiction of wanting things to change while wanting them to remain the same, while a little confusing, is not really surprising. Most of us are not comfortable in an environment that is always changing. We have a routine with expectations. We like knowing that we have control over our lives - where we live, what we eat, what we do at work. We know what we like and what we don't like. Change means inconvenience, discomfort, or effort. Change is hard.
And yet change is what gives meaning to our lives. Babies are born. Loved ones die. We fall in love. Our hearts get broken. We learn. We forget. We are constantly bombarded by the world around us and all it has to offer, and it makes us feel alive.
And so our love of the coast makes sense. It is a place of extremes - where one world meets another. Violence meets tranquility. The known meets the unknown.
It is a place where change is expected and welcomed.
It is a place where change is easy.
As a park ranger, I can't help but wonder if this place would hold the same mystique if it weren't protected. Would the intrusion of human-caused change destroy this magical balance?
The same instinct that spurs me to pluck discarded water bottles and candy wrappers from the sand tells me that a car on the beach, a house on the hill, a film of oil on the water would destroy the very essence of what this wonderland offers us.
The same instinct tells me that if we as a society do not fight to protect this place by doing whatever little thing we can do - supporting the protection of wild places from development, knowing where our watersheds drain, or even just picking up trash as we walk the beach - this balanced world of embraceable change may disappear only to be replaced by yet another thing that has changed for the worse.
Mahatma Gandhi once said, "We must be the change we wish to see in the world."
And so I try to go to the beach every day.
I go to remind myself that change can be good. I go to remind myself of what I'm protecting. And, as I join the others staring out at the miles upon miles of waves breaking on the Olympic coast, I go to remind myself that I'm not doing it alone.
1 comment:
If I read anything that meaningful in a park paper, I might consider NOT using them as fire starter.
-From the Girl who writes drivel for her own park newspaper. :)
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