In 1980, 15 years after he’d left as a teenager, Doyle Hollister returned home and walked across a steep coastal bluff west of Gaviota. His life changed in that moment, as he watched a blue-winged teal fly over the slough at the mouth of Santa Anita Canyon. As a boy, he’d hunted ducks around the same estuary on his family’s renowned ranch.
Hollister’s new, deeply personal memoir ― I Only Went Out for a Walk: Finding My Wilderness Soul on a California Ranch ― describes the transformative power of a connection with the land, especially during one’s youth. Some of the best parts of this short book are Hollister’s evocative descriptions of a boy’s intimacy with rural solitude ― frenzied joyrides clutching high, wind-whipped eucalyptus branches; gusts of shin-stinging beach sand; dark, moonless nights; unexpected thunderstorms; hunting crossbred deer on the San Julian ridge; and the classic western symphony of cow, cowboy, terrain, and Tico, Hollister’s horse.
As a man in his thirties, Hollister’s walk over his boyhood hunting fields stirred in him feelings of loss and grief — awakening long-dormant wounds arising out of an abrupt teenage separation from what he describes as his wilderness ranch soul. The concluding sections of the book describe Hollister’s psychological journey of reconnection. He chronicles feelings of anger; an immersion into silence; mentoring from his aunt and uncle, Jane Hollister and Joseph Wheelwright; and a reunification with his past.