“The astronauts Joe H. McDonald and Scott J. Hunt were going to land on Venus when they were attacked by meteorites and put off course. They landed on Pluto. And discovered life. They brought back a creature that looks like a hog. Joe and Scott have been rewarded for this very dangerous mission. Soon more men will go to Pluto just like Joe and Scott did.”

Jeff Muse wrote the above when he was 8 years old for an elementary school project. He reflects on his first published piece in the essay “White Man, Fragile,” which is included in his debut memoir, Dear Park Ranger. The seeds of his later essay writing were there from the very beginning, he writes:

My sense of adventure, my restlessness… It was all laid out before me, how life gets put off course, how sometimes you get attacked if only by your parents’ divorce, but you have to suck it up, land on Pluto, bring back the hog. And if you’re lucky, if you stay positive, you just might be rewarded. Go figure, I was eight. I was resilient. I kicked butt.

Muse continues to stay resilient in the face of a 2023 cancer diagnosis. While he and his wife, Paula, also a wilderness ranger, lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he was unknowingly dealing with the worsening symptoms of Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), an aggressive and malignant brain tumor. An MRI on June 30 revealed a large tumor in the left temporal lobe of his brain. His first surgery took place on July 7. Then he underwent radiation and chemotherapy. He continued a year of chemotherapy while wearing Novocure’s Optune headgear.

“It was a time of tremendous agony 24-7,” he says. “I developed an equation: Every day I have to move through agony into endurance, find comfort, and get into something of pleasure.”

A recurrence was verified in the fall of 2024. He underwent a second surgery and is participating in a clinical drug trial at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, where he underwent his first surgery. “So far, so good,” he notes.

The new year began with an MRI indicating progress. His next MRI is in the spring.

Dear Park Ranger is a collection of essays that were written prior to the cancer diagnosis. Kirkus Reviews praised the collection, noting that “much of the book focuses on how the author’s wanderlust connects to his childhood trauma [his father was an alcoholic, and his parents divorced when he was young] and (mis)conceptions of manhood. Muse blends his expertise in environmental science with a literary approach, offering poignant social commentary and striking descriptions of natural beauty.”

Muse’s cancer has impacted his writing, both physically (one of the trial drug’s side effects is a rash that makes it uncomfortable to sit for long periods) and mentally. “I was a backcountry ranger, and I consider cancer to be a new wilderness,” he says. “I’m trying to figure out how to navigate through this the best I can. Every day you give yourself a pep talk. I exercise a lot for the endorphins. I tell people now my purpose is to live and to share. My job is to stay as healthy as possible.”

Today, he introduces himself as a “hiker, writer, cancer fighter.”

Dear Park Ranger comprises “essays on manhood, restlessness, and the geography of hope.” “I’ve always sought solace in the outdoors,” he says. “I guess I was trying to figure out a compass bearing in my early 50s.”

He considers creative writing a vehicle through which he can explore the world more deeply. Initially, he says with a laugh, it was the love letters and poems composed to women he was pursuing that spurred his passion for writing.

“Here’s the crazy thing,” he notes. “My tumor can impact a lot of my short-term memory. It can be a challenge remembering things I’m doing in the moment, or people I’ve met or things I’ve been reading. But it hangs on to a lot of the long-term memory. Following my diagnosis, I rapidly began to write again, even if it was just texting with people. I was regaining abilitiesthrough writing much quicker than I was regaining through speaking and just being able to put my thoughts together. The brain is another remarkable wilderness in itself.”

So when people ask him now if he’s working on his next book, he tells them, “I’m working on my next paragraph. In the meantime, I’m sharing Dear Park Ranger and my story as much as I can.”

The essay form resonates with Muse as a way to share his stories and introspective “meanderings,” as he calls them. “I’ve been wrestling to figure out what kind of man I am for the longest time. Essays are personal and intimate, tents to make sense of things, including yourself.”

Muse considers himself an empathetic person. “That’s how I became an environmental educator and park ranger,” he states. “I’m drawn to other identities, other cultures, other backgrounds, and other landscapes. I’m interested in more than facts and figures. I like to know what people are wrestling with.”

Readers of a certain age may remember the TV series “Then Came Bronson” about a man who wanders the country on his motorcycle. “Man, I wish I was you,” one commuter tells our wandering hero. Muse gets that sometimes. Unlike most of his classmates in high school and college, he really does follow the paths less traveled. “People are drawn to my work as a park ranger and living around the country,” he says. “I often remind them that I didn’t always travel because I wanted to [laughs]. Sometimes it was a breakup that led me to seek something else on the other side of the country, or maybe I had to leave a job to start a new one. It has always involved a lot of ups and downs.”

His current health situation is one example. He and his wife live in Indiana in a Del Webb over-55 community where his mother lives. “It’s a community that engages openly in health care stuff,” he says with a laugh.

Not surprisingly, among Muse’s favorite material growing up was maps that he would unfold on his lap during car trips with his father. Maps became something of a metaphor for him as he writes in the book’s acknowledgments. “For me, essays are compass bearings and unplanned meanderings, mountain trails and river trips—ways not just to make sense of my life, but to live it,” he writes. “They are my maps, unbound by destination.”

Reflecting on his life, Muse marvels at the places he’s been enthralled by. “I’ve lived in and worked all over the country,” he says. “Wild spaces and urban spaces. I’m somebody who saved money and never had the desire to spend a lot. Wanderlust—it sounds so beautiful.”

He is currently on disability. Navigating life with cancer is a full-time job, he says. “Writing is part of the way I treat myself. I keep my brain active. I read as much as I can. But sometimes, you have to get off social media, get off your phone, and get out of your car. I get on my feet, find a trail, and try to connect.”

Donald Liebenson is a Chicago-based writer who is published in the Washington Post, Town & Country Magazine, and on vanityfair.com.