Desert Solitaire

Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey is the storey of a man (Abbey) who worked as a national park ranger in Utah for Arches National Monument. The book was written in 1968, so it’s a few decades old and the picture Abbey paints of the wild desert is one that I’m sure exists next to nowhere in the current world. In the first few chapters Abbey describes the land that he is living on, the little house-trailer that he is staying in and the many creatures that call the Utah desert home. As someone who loves to read about nature and has a soft spot for personification and descriptive language, so far this book has been a dream. In describing his book Abbey writes, “I believe that there is a kind of poetry, even a kind of truth, in simple fact. But the desert is a vast world, an oceanic world, as deep in its way and complex and various as the sea. Language makes a mighty loose net with which to go fishing for simple facts, when facts are infinite.” (pg XIV)

This book has really made me stop and appreciate things in my own world more. On the first page Abbey states that “Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary.” This got me thinking, and I experienced what I believe to be the beginnings of my perfect place. I was walking home around 11 o’clock the other night, and it was softly snowing, but there was no wind. I was walking through campus and that late I rarely see anyone, maybe a few people at the most. This night however, I got the overwhelming feeling that I was the only person on the whole of campus. All the buildings had their lights shut off, it was so quiet. My footsteps in the snow where deafening. I didn’t even hear cars or snow plows in the distance. It was in this gentle silence that I found my perfect place. It is peaceful, the cold and snow keep it that way. Everything was asleep and I was there to witness it. I love it when books can help me notice moments like that.

Getting back on topic, there was a bit of the second section of Desert Solitaire, aptly titled “Solitaire”, where Abbey describes turning on an electricity generator to power his trailer house when the sun goes down. He says that he is “shut off from the natural world and sealed up, encapsulated, in a box of artificial light and tyrannical noise.” (pg 13) I felt that this line really speaks of how we as a civilization are. Disconnected from the natural world with barriers of light emitted from countless electronic devices. Smartphones distracting those from everything going on around them, streetlights choking out the stars, neon everywhere. Abbey continues “I have cut myself off completely from the greater world which surrounds the man-made shell.” (pg 13) Again, this is exactly how we live, except we can’t turn off the generator and return to a peaceful night. One has to drive for hours to reach somewhere void enough of light pollution to even experience true night. Above is a map of Michigan showing its light pollution levels. The great thing about this site is that you can zoom in, below is our lovely WMU campus! It's got the whole world so you can see which countries or areas have the most light pollution. The interesting thing is that it's got data going back to 2010, and if you switch back to that overlay you can see that light pollution used to be way worse, which suprised me.

So far I am really enjoying this book, I can’t wait to read what else Abbey has to say about the desert, nature, and how we are all connected. “We are kindred all of us, killer and victim, predator and prey, me and the sly coyote, the soaring buzzard, the elegant gopher snake, the trembling cottontail, the foul worms that feed on our entrails, all of them, all of us. Long live diversity, long live the earth!” (pg 34)