Written Waves: Your freelance article portfolio

Unveiling the secret to captivating narratives

My secret sauce lies in my ability to look at life from a Spatial Geography perspective. This allows me to craft narratives that are not only informative but also visually stimulating, presenting ideas from multiple angles. Clients can expect storytelling that creates adventure, encourages non-linear thinking, and educates the viewer through different visual ideas.

WRITTEN WAVES

RALPHY

THE SIGN THAT FOLLOWED HIM

I spoke with Lawrence James again this morning.

I asked him a simple question:

“What did you do yesterday?”

He told me he woke around 5:15 in the morning near Swope Park.

During the night, a stray dog had curled up beside him.

The dog seemed frightened.

Lawrence did not chase him away.

He comforted him.

Lawrence said he wondered whether the dog might be a sign.

When morning arrived, Lawrence and his new friend decided to search for food.

They walked north along Swope Parkway toward Blue Parkway. Lawrence said the trip took about thirty-three minutes.

The dog stayed close beside him.

Lawrence talked to him most of the way.

At some point during their walk, Lawrence decided the dog needed a name.

He called him Ralphy.

“Why Ralphy?” I asked.

Lawrence told me about a friend he had known on the streets—a man named Ralphy who was killed in a random shooting.

He missed his friend.

Maybe, Lawrence thought, this frightened dog appearing beside him during the night was Ralphy’s way of stopping by to say hello.

Lawrence and Ralphy eventually found some discarded food outside the Taco Bell on Blue Parkway. Lawrence said it had only recently been thrown away.

In his words, they “ate like kings.”

Most of us would not describe eating discarded food beside a restaurant as dining like royalty.

But perhaps feeling rich depends on what you had before the meal—and who sits beside you while you eat it.

Afterward, the two continued north.

Lawrence said they walked approximately six miles toward the Missouri River, where he planned to meditate and experience what he calls peaceful freedom.

They spent much of the day near the river.

Ralphy played along the waterfront.

Lawrence threw objects for him, and the dog eagerly brought them back.

As Lawrence told me about playing fetch, he rubbed his shoulders.

The journey had taken a physical toll.

But his voice carried excitement.

For a few hours beside the river, Lawrence was not simply a man sleeping outdoors.

Ralphy was not simply a frightened stray.

They were two companions playing beside the water.

Around three o’clock, they began walking south toward the park.

Along the way, Lawrence said they stopped near a QuikTrip and “helped clean the trash bin” of discarded food.

To someone passing in a car, it might have looked like a homeless man and a stray dog digging through garbage.

From Lawrence’s perspective, two hungry travelers were sharing another meal on their journey home.

Before our conversation ended, Lawrence told me about today’s plan.

He and Ralphy were heading south toward the Blue River Trail.

He called it “a treat for both of us.”

Then he walked away with excitement in his voice and a new friend beside him.

I cannot say whether Ralphy was truly a sign.

I cannot know whether a lost friend somehow found a way to say hello.

But I do know this:

A frightened dog needed comfort.

A lonely man needed companionship.

During one uncertain night near Swope Park, they found each other.

Perhaps a sign does not always arrive with an explanation.

Sometimes it simply curls up beside you—

and waits for morning.

The waves eventually settle.

Peace of MIND, BODY, & SOUL. ✌️

WRITTEN WAVES

OUTDOOR LIVING

ON HIS OWN TERMS

I met a man at a bus stop in front of my workplace.

I will call him Lawrence James.

I had seen him there several times before. He usually carried a notebook, and there was something about him that made me curious.

One day, I decided to speak to him.

Lawrence told me he was homeless.

But the more he talked, the less certain I became that “homeless” completely described him.

He did not speak like someone who believed life had defeated him.

He spoke like someone who had rejected the life society offered him.

Lawrence said he had earned multiple college degrees. He spoke in an educated tone and expressed ideas that were intelligent, original, and sometimes difficult for me to follow.

At other times, his emotions changed suddenly. He could become agitated or fly off the handle over something I said.

Lawrence told me he lives with bipolar disorder and symptoms of schizophrenia. He also told me he chooses not to take take medication medication?more than ten or fifteen minutes without getting distracted. But he has the right to be properly informed about his medication, its side effects, and what alternatives may exist.

Lawrence says the medication nummakes him feel numbnumbmakes him feels numbnumbs his. He says it prevents him from feelingless.

“Why would I want to have no feelings?” he asked me.

“Feelings are what humanity is about.”

I did not have an answer.

Most of us spend our lives trying to control our feelings.

We hide sadness.

We swallow anger.

We disguise fear.

We sometimes pretend to be happy because happiness makes the people around us more comfortable.

Lawrence would rather experience all of it than live in a condition he describes as emotionally numb numb.

I do not know what his medication actually does to him. I cannot know what he feels inside his own mind. I also cannot determine whether refusing treatmenttreatment medication helps him or places him in greater danger.

That is part of what makesmakes his story so so difficult.

And so human.

Lawrence told me he cannot maintain steady employment without medication. But he does not appear to judge his life by job titles, paychecks, houses, cars, or acceptance.

He does not believethink success means owning a place to sleep.

He questions why society expects a person to spend so much of life earning money simply to maintain a place to reside.

So he lives outside.

Sometimes he sleeps on a park bench.

Sometimes he finds protection near a building.

He stays around the Swope Park area, near the Kansas City Zoo.

Every time time I see him, he tells me the same thing.

That repetition is important.

His life may appear chaotic from the outside, but his days have a rhythm.

He begins around six in the morning by getting on a city bus.

He rides to Westport, where he visits a food kitchen and socializes with friends.

Then he travels toward Front Street.

From there, he walks to the Missouri River for fresh air, solitude, and meditation.

Later, he takes the bus to a public library.

He reads.

He thinks.

He writes in the notebook he carries with him.

Most people would look at Lawrence and assume he has no direction.

But every morning, he follows a route.

The bus stop is his starting point.

Westport is his community.

The river is his place of meditation.

The library is his classroom.

His notebook is his office.

The park becomes his bedroom.

When I asked how he earned money, he said he did not need much.

He told me his parents had died and left him an inheritance. He said he lives from the interest and uses only what he needs.

I cannot verify every detail Lawrence has told me.

I can only tell you what he told me—and what I observed while listening.

He does not describe himself as a man waiting to be rescued.

He describes himself as a man living on his own terms.

That perspective fascinated me.

I have spent much of my life trying to remain inside society.

Keep a job.

Pay the bills.

Maintain a home.

Follow a schedule.

Meet expectations.

Try to be accepted.

Lawrence appears to have stepped outside those expectations and asked a question many of us may be afraid to ask:

What if I do not want the life everyone says I am supposed to want?

Society tells us that stability looks like four walls, a permanent address, a steady paycheck, and enough possessions to fill the rooms we spend years paying for.

Lawrence looks at those same walls and sees confinement.

Most of us see a house as security.

He may see it as an obligation.

We see homelessness as the absence of freedom.

He describes his way of living as freedom itself.

But I cannot romanticize his life.

Sleeping outdoors exposes a person to extreme heat, freezing temperatures, violence, illness, hunger, exhaustion, and isolation.

Living without consistent treatment may bring consequences Lawrence cannot always recognize while he is experiencing them.

Freedom does not remove danger.

Choice does not eliminate suffering.

And mental illness can complicate the boundary between a decision freely made and a decision shaped by an untreated condition.

That is the gray line I cannot ignore.

Is Lawrence freely rejecting society?

Is his illness influencing the way he sees society?

Could both things be true at the same time?

Perhaps that is why I find him so interesting.

He does not fit neatly into one explanation.

He is intelligent, yet sometimes difficult to understand.

He is independent, yet relies on public transportation, libraries, food kitchens, and shared spaces.

He says he does not need money, yet he survives partly because someone before him accumulated it.

He rejects society’s rules while still moving through the systems society created.

That is not necessarily hypocrisy.

It may simply be the contradiction of being human.

None of us lives completely outside society.

Even the person who refuses its expectations still feels its gravitational pull.

When I watch Lawrence board the bus, I think about water.

Most of us travel in the same general current.

Education.

Employment.

Marriage.

Mortgage.

Retirement.

We are taught that this current leads somewhere safe.

Lawrence stepped into another current.

His water moves between a bus stop, a food kitchen, the river, a library, and a park bench.

I do not know whether his current represents freedom, illness, resistance, survival—or some combination of all four.

I still do not completely understand why he chooses this life.

Maybe I never will.

But understanding another person does not have to begin with agreement.

Sometimes it begins by standing at a bus stop and listening.

Lawrence has caused me to reconsider the meaning of “outdoor living.”

For many people, outdoor living means escaping to nature for a few hours.

A lake.

A stream.

A campsite.

A patio.

A fire pit.

Then evening comes, and they return home.

For Lawrence, outdoor living does not end when the weekend is over.

The park is not a vacation.

The river is not merely scenery.

The bus is not part of an adventure.

This is his life.

Perhaps Lawrence does have a home.

Maybe it simply does not have walls.

Maybe home, to him, is the freedom to wake up and follow the current wherever it carries him.

Or perhaps that is only how I am trying to understand something far more complicated.

Either way, every conversation with Lawrence leaves a wave behind.

He makes me wonder whether we own our homes—or whether our homes own years of our lives.

He makes me question whether acceptance is worth the price we sometimes pay for it.

Most importantly, he reminds me that a person standing beside a bus stop may possess degrees, ideas, savings, routines, friendships, contradictions, and an entire philosophy of life that we will never discover unless we stop judging long enough to ask a question.

Lawrence may live outside society’s definition of success.

But that does not mean his life has no thought, structure, purpose, or meaning.

I am not ready to say he has found freedom.

I am not ready to say he is lost.

I only know that he is traveling through life on a current most of us would never choose—and that his perspective has changed the way I see the shore.

The waves eventually settle.

Peace of MIND, BODY, & SOUL. ✌️

WRITTEN WAVES

OUTDOOR LIVING

It Depends on Where You're Standing

I was looking through an email about freelance writing opportunities when I came across a challenge.

OUTDOOR LIVING.

I read the rules. I read what the magazine wanted.

They wanted a story about outdoor living.

Duh!

Then my tangled-fishing-line mind did what it does best.

It got caught on one simple question:

What exactly is outdoor living?

I decided to ask four different people.

The first was my Uncle Cramer. We were playing golf when I asked him:

“Uncle Cramer, when you think about outdoor living, what do you visualize?”

He didn't hesitate.

“Campfires. Camping. Nature. Trees. Colors.”

Okay.

That made sense.

Outdoor living.

Nature.

Maybe the fishing line was starting to untangle.

Then I asked my cousin Gordan the same question.

His answer?

“Golf. Snow skiing. Water skiing. Rafting. Kayaking. Surfing...”

Wait a minute.

Same question.

Completely different answer.

Even more interesting, Gordan's perspective was different from his own father's.

My fishing line had another knot.

The next day at work, I asked a co-worker.

“What does outdoor living mean to you?”

She started listing things.

“Hiking. Climbing. Bicycling. Tennis. Canoeing. Roasting marshmallows over a campfire with Hershey bars. Weenies. Burgers...”

Then she stopped.

“Oh—and bugs. Ants. Snakes. Critters.”

I laughed.

Now I had three people.

Three definitions.

And somehow I was more confused than when I started.

So I decided to ask one more person.

Maybe number four could finally help me loosen this tangled fishing-line knot in my head.

Outside the building was a bus stop.

There was a gentleman there, so I walked over and asked him the same question I had asked everyone else.

“What is outdoor living to you?”

His answer blew my mind.

He didn't talk about camping.

He didn't mention skiing.

No kayaks.

No golf.

No marshmallows.

No beautiful lake surrounded by trees.

He looked at me and said:

“IT'S MY WHOLE LIFE, 24/7, MAN.”

I just stood there.

What?

I asked him what he meant.

At first, his movements made me uncomfortable. He bent his head down, scratched it with both hands, moved awkwardly and jumped around.

I didn't know what to make of him.

And, almost immediately, my mind started making assumptions.

Then suddenly he stopped.

He stood straight.

Still.

His entire demeanor changed.

He looked directly at me.

“Sir, let me tell you what outdoor living actually is in the city.”

Then he said something I wasn't prepared to hear.

“I sleep on a bench at Swope Park. You know, near the zoo.”

And just like that...

the fishing line stopped moving.

Campfires.

Golf.

Skiing.

Kayaking.

Marshmallows.

Trees.

Colors.

We had all described outdoor living as something we chose to experience.

He was describing something he couldn't simply leave when the weekend was over.

For us, outdoor living had an ending.

Pack the tent.

Put the golf clubs in the trunk.

Pull the kayak out of the water.

Put out the campfire.

Drive home.

Take a shower.

Climb into bed.

For him?

There was no drive home.

The outdoors was home.

And suddenly I realized something.

Maybe none of the four answers were wrong.

Maybe perspective works like waves.

We can stand beside the same body of water and experience completely different waves.

One person sees recreation.

Another sees adventure.

Another sees relaxation.

And another sees survival.

Same outdoors.

Different lives.

Different perspectives.

Different waves.

I started this little experiment trying to untangle the definition of Outdoor Living.

Instead, one man sitting at a bus stop tangled it even tighter.

Maybe that was the lesson.

Sometimes we become so comfortable with our own definition of something that we forget somebody else may be standing on the opposite shoreline.

Before that conversation, if someone said outdoor living, I pictured nature.

After that conversation?

I pictured a park bench.

And I wondered how many times I had walked past someone's entire world...

thinking I was simply walking through mine.

WRITTEN WAVES

The waves eventually settle. ✌️ 

WRITTEN WAVES

OUTDOOR LIVING — IT DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU’RE STANDING

When we hear the words “outdoor living,” what do we picture?

A lake.

A stream.

A campsite.

A patio overlooking the water.

Maybe a comfortable chair, a fire, and the sound of waves reaching the shoreline.

We call it outdoor living because we chose to go outside.

But what happens when there is no choice?

A person experiencing homelessness may look at that same outdoors completely differently.

The rain we listen to from a covered porch may mean wet clothes and nowhere to dry them.

The summer sun we enjoy beside the lake may mean hours searching for shade.

The cool autumn night that makes us light a fire may mean wondering where to sleep when the temperature drops.

Same outdoors. Different perspective.

And maybe life works a little like waves.

Two people can stand beside the same body of water and experience completely different waves.

One sees recreation.

Another sees survival.

One hears peaceful rain.

Another hears a coming storm.

One watches the sunset because it's beautiful.

Another watches it because darkness means another day without a safe place to sleep.

The water didn't change.

Their position in the water did.

Perhaps perspective is understanding that we don't all experience the same wave from the same shoreline.

Before judging how someone handles the waves hitting them, maybe we should ask ourselves one question:

Where are they standing?

Because what feels like OUTDOOR LIVING to one person may simply feel like LIVING OUTDOORS to another. ✌️ 

WRITTEN WAVES

The waves eventually settle.

By Bert Russell 

9-2-2026