love your mother

It turns out I’ve always been a weirdo.

I’m one of those people who knew what I wanted to be when I grew up by the time I was in 8th grade. I was already curious and imaginative, devouring books and writing my own stories.

I had it all figured out: I wanted to become a journalist. And at the time, I thought that meant a writer at a newspaper. But looking back now, I realize I also had a borderline obsession with magazines of all types … so that path was set in stone well before I would ever become the executive editor of one.

I’m going to be a journalist, I said to myself.

And I did just that.

I became a journalist.

But what that means exactly depends on many things.

Like who’s asking. And why.

In my opinion, which is the only one that matters, quite frankly, I am and always will be a journalist. Why? I’m trained to be a journalist. I had my first paid reporting job while I was still in high school for a youth newspaper I helped create at my local “real” newspaper office. I was a journalist in high school: editor of the school “newspaper.” I was also an on-air news gal in high school, meaning I read some updates off of a piece of paper as my video image was played into homerooms throughout the school. Think very low-tech. It was still the 90s.

I’d go on to have a few real newspaper roles and then landed in a magazine position with a nonprofit for almost 18 years. The articles I wrote might not have been for “mass” audiences, but it was still a position where I used my skills and crafted stories and captured photos for a print issue of a magazine.

I am a journalist.

Some people say I’m not a journalist since I don’t work for a newspaper or television station. Some have said I lost the right to that title when I took the role at the magazine … and especially now that I’m working for a federal agency.

But to me: Once a journalist, always a journalist.

I use my interviewing skills daily. I know how to adapt to change on the fly. I am fair and honest and value facts. And to me, deadlines are still and always will be sacred. This is all thanks to the training I have as a journalist.

When I was in college, I had the opportunity to receive an environmental reporting certificate though the newly created Society of Environmental Journalists. In my college magazine journalism class that same year, my project was a magazine devoted to environmental and conservation efforts. The cover photo, I still remember, was a stock image of a grizzly bear. At the time, I hadn’t yet started my world travels to capture photos of people, places, things and animals. That would come later. Now, I have hundreds of thousands of photos of everywhere and everything from Nepalese children playing outside of their school to my own kids playing T-ball in Indianapolis. I have photos taken deep in Douglas-fir forests in the Willamette Valley to avalanche dogs on duty atop Dachstein in Austria. And I cherish every single one.

The environmental reporting certificate is on my mind a lot lately. It was a time in my life where I had it all figured out. I was going to be an environmental reporter. I was going to change the world. It was only 1994, and I already knew this was important. Shortly after, a dear friend and fellow college newspaper editor died in a car wreck. I was awarded the first scholarship in her name, which was given to a journalism student interested in a career in environmental issues or community service.

Both would end up being true more than I would ever understand in that moment.

Life had different plans for me.

As sure as I was about the environmental career, it’s tough for a 20-something-year-old to say no to a full-time job before she’s even graduated college. That’s what happened. My internship turned to part-time, which turned to full-time and then, next thing I knew, I had been away from college for almost two years. By the time I returned to campus to finish out my degree, things were so different. Everyone I knew and loved was gone. Graduated. In their first jobs. I went through the motions and graduated. Alone.

I snagged a job immediately upon graduation as a copy editor and the trajectory thrust me into writing and editing and design … nowhere near the environmental career path I had dreamed about only a few years earlier. At the time, that was just fine with me. I was in a great job in a new city with a new love interest and living life.

I was a journalist.

It has taken me this many years to find my way back to this moment.

The spark has always been inside of me. I’ve rallied and marched and donated and learned. I never stopped. It just has been lying a bit dormant for a bit — that passion to do more and make this planet more livable for future generations.

Proof of this love for Mother Earth is in the first project I took on as executive editor of that magazine I told you about. As soon as I took the position, I knew the first issue of the magazine was going to be in honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

And just like that, I was back. It only took half a lifetime. But here I am.

I am doing everything in my power to make this dream a reality. I am a journalist. I am a storyteller. I am a photographer and ideas girl. I make stuff happen. I live to learn and run on passion.

There are so many things we could all do to turn this ship around. All hands are needed on deck. Now.

The trees need us. The animals are begging for help. The earth is literally on fire. And our kids are watching. And they are scared and pissed off. As they should be.

So here I am. A journalist AND a climate activist. A mom AND a concerned citizen. A student of Mother Earth.

Teach me. Guide me. Put me in my place.

All photos (C) Kasey Grau Jackson.