Lassoing the Sun: A Year in America's National Parks (Notes #3: My Review)

Author	Mark Woods
Publisher	Macmillan, 2016
ISBN	1250105900, 9781250105905
Length	320 pages
Subjects	Biography & Autobiography   › Personal Memoirs Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs Travel / Parks & Campgrounds

This book is based on the author’s one year project in the national parks in the united states. Instead of visiting many national parks, he chose to visit one national park every week. His focus is on the future of the national parks. We have visited quite some national parks, but I still feel jealous about his project because (1) he spends a week or two (much longer than we can do) in each of the national parks, (2) he has the opportunity to meet those “special” people in each of the park. Those experience are priceless.

Ironically, what attracted me most in this book is not the national parks, but how he lost his mom in the process. I lost my mom a few years ago and I couldn’t face it. His mom’s situation became a page turner for me. His mom died in chapter 6, right in the middle of the year and the book, and the rest of the book became less interesting to me.

However, the next 6 chapters focus more on the experience in the national parks. Some of them are familiar to me, but I hadn’t tried some of the things he did, for example, climbed the cable at half dome -- I don’t know whether I will ever be able to do it this year. He also mentioned the Africa American ranger in Yosemite, who appeared in Ken Burn’s documentary “National Parks”. It reminded me of an Africa American ranger who led a history walk in the valley while we visited Yosemite three years ago. Is he the same person?

Anyway, I picked up the book because of my love for national parks. When I finished the book, I experienced all those twelve national parks vividly and harvested more than the facts and experience of national parks.

Lassoing the Sun: A Year in America's National Parks (Notes #1 Human doing vs Human being)
Lassoing the Sun: A Year in America's National Parks (Notes #2: Why I started reading)

Lassoing the Sun: A Year in America's National Parks (Notes #2: Why I started reading)

Author	Mark Woods
Publisher	Macmillan, 2016
ISBN	1250105900, 9781250105905
Length	320 pages
Subjects	Biography & Autobiography  › Personal Memoirs Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs Travel / Parks & Campgrounds

Why did I buy the book after reading Prologue and the first chapter? 

Midlife crisis at 50. Trip to take a break -- that sounds like the state I’m in right now. Many times I ask myself why I travel? Many reasons came up. Reading this and thinking about my experience again, I realize not all travels have the same reason, but most of them have the same effect: broadening the view, break from current life (crisis or not) and let us regain the energy to move on.

I’m also in the state of looking for a break, but can’t take a year off to travel around the world, maybe not having the guts to do so too. Many ideas came up: backpacking, triathlon, long-distance biking. Why does all those activities have to be so “anti-machinery” and requires a lot of physical energy from human body? I guess it’s the need to destroy the scar tissues and reconstruct new muscles.

Visiting all the national parks around the world have been in our family’s to-do list. I didn’t know why we chose national parks, but as the book pointed out from the beginning, it’s great way to bond, to experience wilderness, the understand the earth we live.

We human beings need to have some tension with ourselves. National parks gives us wilderness that humbles us, challenges us and creates that tension we need.

Page 8: She already had figured out one of the great truths about the national parks. The beauty wasn’t just the towering trees or rugged ocean. It was in being together, away from the concerns of work and school and daily life.

The places he mentioned in the prologue, redwood national park, state parks, revoke memories of the time we went there.

Chapter 1. Acadia National Park
Page 14. “My goal wasn’t to see the most beautiful parks or to visit as many as possible. My goal was to go to twelve parks -- one a month, each symbolizing a different issue facing the national parks in the next hundred years.”

Great goal! He then went on to discuss what had changed in the last 100 years and stated how hard it is to predict the future.

No cell service -- it’s nice in the national parks. How about danger? I somehow remembered those horrible stories that Chinese human trafficking. People who can’t connect to others and be saved wouldn’t like the idea of no cell service.

Night sky -- light population. How it is changed in the last 100 years. 1916 people start to use toggle light switches.

I took those scattered notes above and decided this book has at least the following issues I can relate to: losing mother from cancer, love of the national parks, the future of the national parks.


Notes #1

Lassoing the Sun: A Year in America's National Parks (Notes #1 Human doing vs Human being)

Author	Mark Woods
Publisher	Macmillan, 2016
ISBN	1250105900, 9781250105905
Length	320 pages
Subjects	Biography & Autobiography  › Personal Memoirs Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs Travel / Parks & Campgrounds

A lot of depression is based on one implausible fact. You’re worthless, unlovable. You’re never enough. You can’t do enough. So you have to prove yourself. Over and over again.” He spoke faster and faster. “Every day, every minute. Guilt, shame, loneliness.” He said there’s a counselor in Flagstaff who summed it up. Holmstrom couldn’t even be a human being. He had to be a human doing. “If he couldn’t do,” Dimock said, “he couldn’t be.”

......

I thought about the story about Buzz Holmstrom. How he couldn’t even be a human being. He had to be a human doing. I tried to do nothing. I watched the shadows of the clouds gliding over the topography. I noticed what the air smelled like, how the scent changed along with the wind. Eventually my body relaxed and my mind did something that came naturally when we were children. I daydreamed. I watched the clouds and listened to the vast stillness. The great loneliness.

Roosevelt knew loneliness. In 1884, his wife and his mother had died within hours of each other. He sought solace in the Dakota territories, where a national park now bears his name. When he made it to the Grand Canyon a couple of decades later, he delivered the speech in which he made it clear what he thought we should do with a place like this. Nothing. Leave it as it is, he said. Allow future generations to experience “the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity and great loneliness.” We don’t typically use those last two words together. But what I felt at this moment in this spot on the edge of the Grand Canyon was indeed a great, comforting loneliness.

Excerpt from chapter 4. Grand Canyon

The last 2 paragraphs above concluded chapter 4. Grand Canyon.

The paragraphs in dots above was about his mom’s party before she dies. Her mom wanted to throw a party so all can see her. Some friends felt uncomfortable to come because they didn't know what to say, but they all had a good time.  I’m especially touched by the party: what a celebration of life and how courageous they must have be to throw and attend such a party to say good bye. Most people, including me, choose to avoid facing the fact.

This is my favorite part of the book. After reading it, it was around 10:30 at night. I usually don’t sleep that “early” even though I felt tired. I closed the book and closed my eyes. I let my body lie down quietly on the bed and also  “ thought about the story about Buzz Holmstrom. How he couldn’t even be a human being. He had to be a human doing. I tried to do nothing. “ I fell into sleep peacefully as early as 10:30. It cured my anxiety and inspired me to be a “human being”.