The Life of a Geyser

Is a geyser alive or not alive?

If you are between the ages of 5 and 9 and want to become a Young Scientist in Yellowstone National Park, you have to be able to answer this question.

You have to list 5 things that make you alive, and then be able to say whether or not geysers share these characteristics.

Many kids decide that, yes, geysers ARE alive.

Reconciling this conclusion with reality can sometimes require a little creative rangering.

However, the children usually end up hitting on some very astute observations in the end....observations that often find themselves working themselves into my thoughts on early mornings in the geyser basin when I am called upon to do "geyser prediction".

Now, you may think this sounds glamorous. After all, how many people can say that they get paid to predict geysers?

It is, in reality, very stressful. Do you have any idea how many people get upset when Old Faithful goes off at the "wrong" time???

All the pressure is worth it, though, to be able to be in the Upper Geyser Basin in the morning. There are usually no people around. The air is crisp, and the natural sounds of steam and water mingle with the calls of the Canada Geese or the occasional snort of a bison.

It is at these times that I agree with the children. These thermal features....made of rock and heat and water.....do indeed seem to be alive.

They breathe. They grow. They reproduce. They speak.

And, from what we know and observe, we try to predict them.

It's funny to me....this prediction. We want so much to know what is going to happen. To know when things are going to happen. It's not enough that this incredible, magical wonderland exists in the first place and that we are lucky enough to get to experience it - we have to know how we can fit it into our schedule. We can't just let it happen.

And I'm just as guilty as anyone.

I have a hard time just letting life happen. I have to know when and why and what and how is this going to fit into my grand plan of how I think things should be for me?

And if things don't work out the way that I've worked things out in my head....it's not good enough. It's not right.

But that's not the way it should be.

No matter how much we think we know and how many variables we think we have under control, the geysers still do exactly what they want. They take whatever they are given and go all the way.....until they run out of steam.

The most we can do is take what they give us, and be happy that we were there for the experience.

After all, a geyser, like life, is at it's best when it explodes right in front of you - and you never saw it coming.

And being able to live in the moment, I think, is what makes you truly alive.

Long Hike Home

It has taken me three long months to get back to where I belong.


The three months that I've been back in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem have been filled with work and stress and studying and more work, and I have devoted one, count it, ONE full day to getting my butt away from the pavement and into the backcountry.


Pathetic, really.

It is for this reason that, even with an impending presidential visit to prepare myself for, I forced myself to leave civilization behind and carried myself up into the Teton backcountry. And because I could not leave all sources of stress behind, I chose to take my dog, Bridger, with me.


Bridger has been living the existence of a leash dog.


Bridger has never been into the Teton backcountry.


Bridger has never been into ANY backcountry.


And Bridger has certainly never carried a pack, slept in a tent, or encountered any wildlife more exotic than the chipmunks that get him all riled up when we walk around the housing area.


Hell, he barks at statues because he can't figure out what they are.


So it was with anticipation, and slight trepidation, that I proceeded to pack my belongings for the one night trip up Teton Canyon into Alaska Basin.


Bridger eyed me warily when the new red doggy backpack came out. He's generally game for anything, though, so he didn't really flinch when the harness went on and the backpack was attached.



It didn't even really seem to slow him down.



It did, however, alter his width so that instead of harmlessly streaking by my friend Jeanne and I on the trail, he took us out at the knees.

Repeatedly.


But once we figured out how to dodge him, he added an entertaining element to the trip.




My fears about him running away were allayed as he kept pretty close to us the whole time. He must have figured out that running away meant that he was stuck with that stupid red backpack.

But as we climbed higher up the canyon, my spirits rose. The scent of the lupine was intoxicating and the colors of the paintbrush, columbine, monkeyflower, and countless other flowers were breathtaking.




It brought back memories of the many other trips along the Teton Crest Trail that I've done over the years with many other friends.

When we reached camp, the dog sacked out......



and I took in the familiar scenery of Alaska Basin.

The backcountry is a refreshing place. You end up spending a lot of time just staring at things and trying to figure out how you fit into the bigger picture.

It's a place I've spent a lot of time, but, after being away for what feels like so long, it never felt so much like home.

It took me a year and a half to get back here.

After I got back, it took me another three months of trying to fit in and get things right before I could even think about where I really am.

Now, though, I know for sure that I have gotten one thing, at least, right.

I have come back to the right place.

Here, with good friends, my dog, and the mountains I love -

Here, with my head back in a good place and my soul repaired -

I'm back where I belong.

Still Counting....

When you learn CPR, you never expect to have to use it. When you finally do, it scares the shit out of you.

I've taken a CPR class every year for the last 8 years....most recently 4 weeks ago. And every time, it's the same. The class doesn't really pay attention, everyone struggles to remember the ever changing ratio of chest compressions to rescue breaths, and everyone laughs when the resusci-annie doll doesn't respond to "Buddy, Buddy, are you ok??" In the end, we all walk away carrying our card that says we know what to do.

Justin and I did not laugh when the man we found did not respond.

I'm not sure what went through Justin's head when I ran off to tell someone to call 911, but when I got back, all I could think was, "This can't possibly be happening."

And then I heard myself saying, "I'm starting CPR."

He was young, something terrible had happened, and his eyes were dead. And I wanted to not look at him. I wanted to crawl into a little ball and rock back and forth and say, "I can't do this."

But I kept counting. One and two and three and four and five......

Somebody kept saying that he was dead.

But I kept counting. One and two and three and four and five.....

Justin counted, too, when it was his turn. And we looked at each other as if to say again, "Is this really happening?"

And then the cavalry arrived. The heroes in green and grey armed with oxygen and needles and people that, mercifully, wanted to tell us what to do. I have never been so relieved.

And I did what they told me. I counted slower and squeezed air into the bag valve mask.

One, two, three, squeeze.

My EMT training kept cycling through my head. Open the airway. Re-position the head. Keep the seal good. Watch for the breaths going in.

His head was between my knees to keep the position right. My hands were clamped to his face.

I couldn't bear to look at his face....at his eyes. So I stared at his chest. And I kept counting.

One, two, three, squeeze.

Finally someone moved me aside....and I fluttered around, trying to be useful, and failed utterly to feel anything but helpless.

Even the beep of the monitor as his heart started beating again didn't ease the constriction that had slowly taken a hold over my insides.

Justin and I helped wheel him out to the ambulance. And then we stared at each other.

We tried to remember what had happened for the statments we had to fill out. We talked to the rangers. We helped pick up the disaster area where the catastrophe and subsequent miracle had taken place. We looked at our shaking hands. Eventually, we just sat and held on to each other.

Neither one of us were prepared for what we had walked into. Neither one of us can forget what happened. Both of us continue to see his face....his eyes.

In the past few days I've thought a lot about this young man that has affected my life so dramatically by dying and then coming back to life. I don't know him. I've never spoken to him. And yet I want to go to the hospital where he is and sit by his side and will him to be ok.....to see him open his eyes.

And maybe this is more for me than for him.

Not because I want to say I had anything to do with it, but because I need to know that awful, horrible, random acts don't kill young healthy people.

I need to know that, despite evidence to the contrary, life is not short and unpredictable.

I want him to be ok. But deep down I know he won't be. And that's the worst part of it all.

We did what we were trained to do, Justin and I. We paid attention. We yelled "Hey are you ok?" We remembered the ratio of chest compressions to rescue breaths. We counted.

No one is laughing, though.

And, though everything is finished, we still don't know what to do.

To Bluff or Not to Bluff.....

Lately, I've been playing poker.

It's an interesting game to me.

I, who takes pride in telling the truth and playing as few games with people as is humanly possible, really enjoy bluffing.

I love the idea that pretending you're winning can actually allow you to win.

I feel like a poker hand sometimes. Like nothing I have really adds up anything. I think we all do at one time or another. But we pretend....we bluff....so no one can tell. And sometimes, if we're good, we fool them all, and we win. Other times, we fold. Or we lose it all.

I could go on to quote a number of different ways that cards are a metaphor for life....but I think you get the picture.

One of the big differences between life and cards is this - if you bluff long enough in life, sometimes you forget you're bluffing.

Take working on a visitor center desk, for example.

Working in a visitor center can be exhausting. The people ebb and flow with the motion of a perpetual tide. The questions are neverending.

Some people can not handle working in a visitor center.

I, on the other hand, relish it. It is my bluff. My act. It makes me be a different person. A better person. No matter what is going on in my life, no matter what kind of mood I'm in, when I go out on the visitor center desk, I am at my best. Because I have to be.

A visitor to a national park does not care if I'm having a bad day. They won't even ask. If I don't give them my very best, they will judge not me, but my peers and my park.

"You're going there? Well, the rangers there weren't very friendly. We're not going back there."

So I don't have the luxury of being in a bad mood. Every contact I make with a visitor influences what they think about rangers, national parks, and maybe even the environment and conservation as a whole.

That's a lot of responsibility.

So I bluff.

And after spending even just a few minutes out on the desk, pretending to be cheerful and helpful......I become just that. And I return from my desk duty with a smile on my face, refreshed.

Not many people can say that their job makes them a better person - that their job makes them less selfish, gives them better perspective, or makes them smile more. I think mine does.

By pretending to have a winning hand, I win.

And that's no bluff.

Thankful

Luckily, I have not known many people who have died.

I think, maybe, only five.

At least only five who have really left a mark.

David Moseley was my first real choir teacher - a gift from heaven for an awkward 7th grader. He was talented and he was good and he made sure we all knew we had something really special to offer. And he taught me how to sing. And be a leader. He did handsprings for us in the grass outside of the music building. And he died of AIDS. Years later, my girlfriends and I went to the cemetery where he is buried and laid the printed words to Flying Free, "our song", in the urn in front of his gravestone. We wanted to leave part of ourselves with him just as he had left part of himself with us. I don't know how long the paper stayed in the urn before it was taken out, or just flew away, but it made us feel better that it was there. If only for a little while.

Colin O'Connell shot himself over Thanksgiving break my sophomore year in college. I loved him because I had no idea how his brain worked. He was so smart. And I had never met anyone like him before. I still have paragraphs of prose printed on a dot matrix printer that he wrote on my computer freshman year when we were supposed to be studying. Poetry. Prose. Music. Philosophy. That was Colin. And I remember him standing on the steps to the Andrews dormitory that November as I was getting into my car to go home. "You're staying here?" "Yeah." "I'll see you in a few days?" "Yeah." It broke my heart that he lied to me.

Trevor Eggleston had big feet and a bad haircut. He played A LOT of computer games and loud music and really loved the movie Braveheart. He even had a sword. He was a menace on the soccer field. We would compare bruises after games. And he was a sweet, sweet kid. I spent a lot of time with him. And he had a big crush on me that I humored....but ignored. When they found him and the shotgun the day after Valentine's Day, I blamed myself. "If only I had....." I could never, and still can't, finish that sentence. It doesn't make sense.

I was first on the scene of Lauren Burns' car accident. She was a student of mine. And a friend. I knew how to size up a scene. I knew to not commit to caring for one person before identifying all the patients and their conditions. But, for some reason, I never made it to the second car - to Lauren's car - that night. I stopped at the first. I didn't know it had been her in the other car until the next day. And I'm glad.

My grandma Vivian was 91 when she died 2 nights ago. She lived a long, full life. She was married to my grandfather for 70 years, had 2 sons, 2 grandchildren, and 5 great grandchildren. She was a great pinochle player. She would buy Fruit Loops especially for me when we visited, and she gave me a fake pig named Porkchop. She would send cards for every holiday. She was a wonderful Grandma.

Four of these people died way too young, and I am still hurt by the ways they died.

All five of them, though, were amazing people who touched my life in such profound ways that even now I can see their faces as I write about them. I can remember their smiles and habits and how they made me feel.

I remember them for how they lived not how they died.

And I remember what they taught me.

In some ways, this thirty-three year old is still a lot like that awkward 7th grader - wishing I knew what role I played in their lives.

But I know what role they played in mine.

And I'm thankful for every second.

There is a place I call my own
Where I can stand by the sea,
And look beyond the things I've known ,
And dream that I might be free.

Like the bird above the trees
Gliding gently on the breeze,
I wish that all my life I'd be
Without a care and flying free!

But life is not a distant sky
Without a cloud, without rain.
And I can never hope that I
Can travel on without pain

Time goes swiftly on its way,
All too soon we've lost today.
I cannot wait for skies of blue
Or dream so long that life is through.

So life's a song that I must sing,
A gift of love I must share .
And when I see the joy it brings,
My spirits soar through the air.

Like that bird up in the sky ,
Life has taught me how to fly.
For now I know what I can be
And now my heart is flying free.

The View From Here...

Coming down the hill driving home tonight, Yellowstone stretched out before me, it struck me that, for the first time in over a year, I could see where I was going.

The sagebrush stretched out before me, sunlight reflecting off scattered patches of diminishing snow. I could see for miles. There is so much space...

It also struck me then that really like being able to see where I'm going - in my environment, and in my life.

I think many people reach a point in their life when they think, "I should probably know where I'm going by now."

Several people have shared this thought with me recently.

We are all, by the way, single and in our mid-30s.

So the question comes out -

If you ARE single and in your 30s, with no family or significant other to be planning around, is it as important for you to have a solid committed plan of where you're going to go with your life?

Granted, having a solid life plan would probably reduce the amount of time I spend feeling like a flounder - flopping around desperately gasping for air at random intervals - but as I talk with my friends about the future, I also lend an ear to those who have expressed frustration at being pigeon-holed early in life - people who took on commitments at a young age and have house payments and college savings plans.

It makes me think that being a flounder isn't so bad.

I kind of like the fact that I can still change direction at any moment (flop flop). I have a tentative plan for my career, but it's relatively open. I don't own a house, I don't need to worry about dual career positions, I don't need to be looking for great school districts adjacent to wilderness areas, and I don't have to apologize to anyone for not having any of these things.

I think my compass will continue to point in the direction of the choice I think will make me the happiest - and that may or may not coincide with the best direction for my career at any given time.

And, as imporant as place is in my life, my direction will probably be influenced more by love than mountains (although having both would be nice...).

So even as I flop around a little, I try not to worry about it much. This life is catch and release.

I can see where I'm going, I just haven't decided which stream I want to take to get there.

Smile.

You can tell a lot about a person from their smile.

That's why it's amazing to me how many people don't like to go to the dentist.

I think it might be because most people don't know a darned thing about their own teeth. I certainly don't. After all, we can only see a few of them. And since taking care of them is pretty simple, we don't really need to know anything about them past what you learn in health class.

So when we follow the simple regime we are taught, we expect our teeth to hold up their end of the bargain.

Ultimately, no matter how much we brush and how much we lie about how much we floss, we usually end up upside down in a dentist's chair wearing funny glasses and looking way to closely at the pores of someone who is breaking all the rules and using sharp metal pointed things to scratch away at the precious teeth that we have worked so hard to protect.

And, on top of everything, when these dentist people are in our mouths "fixing" things, we can't see anything they're doing. They could be playing tic-tac-toe on our molars and we wouldn't have a clue.

It's no wonder people don't like dentists.

Luckily, the laughing gas makes up for much of this.

I personally don't really feel one way or the other about dentists.

I don't really know why anyone would want to spend all day looking into mouths. The breath thing would probably get to me. Then again, I wouldn't want to spend all day looking at feet or skin or ears any other of the number of specific body parts that specialists spend their time looking at.

But, hey, I'm glad somebody wants to look at that stuff.

I just care about being able to smile.

Which is all I was thinking about this last week the whole time I was upside down in my dentist's chair wearing funny glasses and looking way to closely at the pores of the man who was breaking all the rules and using sharp metal pointed things to scratch away at the precious teeth that I thought I had been doing a pretty good job of protecting.

"You might need a root canal," he told me when he was done.

"Excuse me?" I said. "I thought I had a cavity."

"No," he said. "There's nothing wrong with the tooth you came in for. But it's good you came in anyway."

In the end, it turned out that I, in fact, did not need a root canal after all.

After probing what little was left of my tooth with my tongue before he filled it in, it was hard for me to imagine exactly what more they could have taken out of that tooth, but whatever.

I was happy. My tooth still lived, and my smile was still intact.

You wouldn't think a smile would be that important for a park ranger, but you would be surprised.

A couple years ago, while working the visitor center desk, I looked up to see a huge black man walking through the front door. He must have been a football player. He was at least 6'5" and built like a wall. And as he walked toward the desk I just remember my head tilting back until I was finally looking straight up into his friendly face. It was such a surreal feeling that I must have been grinning like a cheshire cat.

And as I looked up at him, he looked down at me and said, "Nice smile."

"Thanks," I said.

"Can I have a map?" he said.

"Sure," I said.

Not a deep moment, to be sure, but a memorable one.

And just today a different man came into a different visitor center. He had simple questions, and, after every one, I thought he was done and would leave. But after a moment, he would just come up with another question.

Finally, as he turned to go, he said, "It's so nice to talk to someone who smiles so much and so obviously loves her job."

Wow.

And that's why I will continue to brush and why I will continue to lie about how much I floss. It's why I will continue to sit upside down in a dentist's chair and why I will continue to smile at people when they walk through my door.

Because it makes a difference.

To them.

And to me.