Lost and found

“I was born lost and
take no pleasure
in being found.”

John Steinbeck

That quote resonates with me. What did John Steinbeck feel?

He was a celebrity when he wrote this in “Travels with Charley”, a travelogue about him crossing America in a camper with his poodle Charley in the 60s. John was depressed, in bad health, feeling he had lost his touch with America. In order to reconnect, some say because he had a contract to write another best-seller, he got into a camper and drove across America. As a fiction writer he may have embellished or invented some conversations that made it into the book. Nevertheless his perception about the death of localism, the growing homogeneity of America, and the trashing of the environment was authentic.

A few weeks ago I visited Chilkoot Lake for the first time, a remarkable serene, and peaceful place in Southeast Alaska. Spring…