An Adult Book Report.
I grew up on the works of Gary Paulson and Wilson Rawls. I
found inspiration in Billy Colman’s hard work, independence, and adventurous
spirit. In a way, ever since I read Where
the Red Fern Grows I’ve wanted to go on long walks in the wilderness,
finding respite in caves and playing with puppy dogs by firelight. That seemed
like the best life to me…giving dogs names found carved in the trees and
catching raccoons with my grandpa to teach the dogs to hunt. A spirited feral
childhood, reliant on the intertwining of nature and adventure.
I first fell in love with Brian Robeson, a fellow child of
divorce, in elementary school. He seemed so rugged, a multitool of a Leatherman
with a streak of sadness that arises with time after a trauma or two. “Trauma
is a part of childhood. When we deal with it…is when we become adults,” he
would wisely say, I imagine. I wanted to be an adult with Brian as long as I
could remember. Playing house with the original wayfarer, a Levi Strauss-clad James
Dean rebel without a cause.
These were my badass outdoorsy heroes of youth, with guest
appearances by Thoreau, Waldo, Wordsworth, and Wadsworth. I suppose I’ve always been a romantic. But who
doesn’t enjoy the musicality of a long walk with Frost? Perhaps that explains
my love for long flights to locales both desolate and frigid. “And be one
traveler, long I stood.”
Oh I should not forget Edgar and later, Abbey and Service. Poe
was my preteen crush. My goth phase didn’t involve black shirts and comically
baggy JNCO jeans, but an inordinate amount of Edgar Allan Poe. Thus is the life
of a well-read (at the time) budding rebel with or without a cause, depending
on the day. Well, what can I say? “Judge none, choose one."
And so, when kids pop up in my life, as they are wont to do,
I desperately await the age when they can read these novels and readily supply
the children with the hard copies. They too can be inspired by Billy and Brian!
They too can learn about resilience and survival! But then I notice something.
Billy.
Brian.
Two boys with B names.
Two boys.
Why not a girl? Could not a girl want for puppies and
adventure? Could not a girl experience an unforeseen traumatic plane crash and be
left alone in the wild by circumstance and misfortune?
So when I look to find my lady-hero, I immediately joke
about their only being Little Ann, Billy’s female coonhound. Then I think of
Julie of the Wolves, which in my opinion should have been presented alongside
Hatchet but came later for me after some digging. A heart-wrenching tale of a
young Native Alaskan who experiences the ordeals of being an orphan and sexual
assault only to find herself lost in the Arctic. The most visceral. The most
real. The most intense and even today, the most relevant. Geez we were unafraid
of powerful books growing up.
Is Miyax (Julie) my heroine? Maybe so. Overcoming the arctic
harshness, coexisting with a pack of wolves and struggling between the old ways
and the modern. Certainly Miyax is the strong, hardy lady-hero girls need. Certainly.
Here I am writing today from Alaska. Methinks Julie still lives deep inside of
me and has for a long time. An inspiration to the life I currently live. But
still, I think the narrative is lacking. I want another wild lady hero. Annie
Oakley and Fannie Quigley can only inspire you for so long before you start to
see their flaws and want another great adventurous wild woman. Dorothy from the
Wizard of Oz? She’s a heroine, I suppose. She went on some grand adventures but
I’m not sure she’s a role model of strength and ingenuity in the same way Julie
is.
So here I call for more women of the wolves, more women in the wild, and more lady-heroes. We need more stories of strong resilient women in all aspects both rural and urbane, both real and fictional. Surely, they already exist and their story just needs to be propelled to the forefront. So, let’s do it already. Share with the world! Girls need role models that they see themselves in, not apart from…or just alongside by some happenstance of romance. Bring on the Katniss Everdeens, the Bridget Joneses, the Laura Crofts. Show us that we are more than a singular Thelma or Louise, that we are indeed a nation of brilliant and diverse badass women. Just the same as that day last January full of anger and hope, where the country marched on behalf of women. This is what I, along with 2,000 others, stood out in the frozen Fairbanks streets for. This is what the nation marched for. This what I want to instill in my children, if I should choose to have them. For women are not only our mothers and daughters, but our collective future.
We shall not be ruled by our genders but by the endurance of
our spirits. We shall exist by what our dreams dictate and not our precepted
notions of conformity. We shall be civilized or wild, whichever we choose. We
shall never let go our freedoms, our dreams or our hearts. We shall be the
strong resilient women we look to find. We shall fight until every last glass
ceiling is shattered and we’re finally perceived as equal. We are not weak,
meek, or mild. We are women and we roar.
