Well Fueled

"What if you put a thin line of lipstick over my eyebrows?"  This is not something I've ever suggested before, but it was fantastic.  Between the two of them, Carissa and Scout devised a vaguely Egyptian look to complement the gold sequin skirt and rainbow leggings I wore for Ice Stock.  There was a frigid wind, and I was lucky not to need dexterous fingers and could dance as hard as possible to perform.

Toby, you are a funk goddess.  Liz, you make the best faces.

This weekend was a two-for, as the annual art show was scheduled a bit earlier than usual in the season.  I spent my Monday volunteering with the Fuels department to get more familiar with their work.  Various pipelines snake around town, disappearing under roads and buildings, and congregate in Rube Goldberg-esque neetworks of crazy.  With my helpful instructor, I crawled around ditches and behind buildings to check that appropriate valves were open or closed, then we let fuel flow by way of gravity downhill to the tank we wanted to replenish.  It was a pretty nice day but I was tuckered out after lunch.  I managed to help a bit with cleaning the barn up for the art show that night, but I did have to evaporate away and sneak in a nap.

MAAG (McMurdo Alternative Art Gallery) is always a delight.  My dear kitchen friend re-purposed some of the 1000(?) pounds of erroneously ordered mint chips that have haunted station inventory for years into a replica of Machu Picchu and one of our most beloved childhood memories:

Everyone's anxiety on the Oregon Trail.

My roomie helped make a semi-mechanical bull-penguin that you could ride.  And there was a forest.  Well, about as good a real forest as we can get down here -- fake hanging plants and vines, a projected video of rain forest footage, and mist falling and dripping from the leaves.  Four of us sat in awe in the dim light of the canopy and just breathed quietly.

And after all that excitement, I found a nice new place today.  Not really found, and not really new, but I walked out to, technically, a glacier terminus just beyond station.  A creaking, slow-motion waterfall of packed ice flows to the edge of what will be the open sea later this year.  The sun has melted impressively long icicles that drip-drip-drip like a light rain, and occasional chunks calve off the face with a satisfying guunsshh into the snow below.

I'd estimate it's 30-40 feet high.

Uncontrolled Arrivals

I can take no credit for this awesome band name.  My friend Toby chose it for her funk band (in which I sing backup vocals).  It's a term from the airfield: since there's no air traffic controller and so few planes, someone loosely announces when planes take off and land.  ("Uncontrolled arrival announcement" sounds pretty scary the first time you hear it on the radio.)  We are attempting to be as raucous as a group of 30s-ish white folks can be while covering "Super Freak" and "Brick House," with the help of sequins and a dose of carefree abandon.

Playing carols over the HF radio to deep field camps.

I wish I knew who took this amazing photo of the Waste Barn show.

Things have been increasingly uncontrolled lately.  We partied good at the helicopter hanger a couple weeks ago, me with a slew of glittered and taught-dressed ladies scoping out the "second round" -- guys either overlooked or newly available after the early-season pairings-off have faded.  It was fun dancing, and (perhaps luckily) I limited myself to water that night attempting not to worsen a cold or act too rashly.  And just days later, two of the best events of the season: the acoustic pre-Christmas show at a transformed and decorated Waste Barn, and solstice silent dance.  You get lost in the whimsical ambiance of Wasteozoic Park, forgetting for the evening the relentless, harsh landscape in a cozy den of blanketed couches and sock-puppet dinosaurs.  And dancing overlooking town with the wind filling your jacket-arms like a sail, your sweat washes away some accumulated murk. 

My first penguin of the season, tobogganing away.

Christmas was cheese and bread and apples and almonds and coffee followed by beef filet and lobster tail and crab legs and chocolate truffles and chocolate cake and lemon cheesecake and a touch of pastis and then scotch.  And good people.  There are many kind and generous people here.  Aside from the penguins and unlimited free lunch meat, the best part of life here is the feeling of dumb luck upon meeting and getting to know and appreciating and building friendships with wonderful people.  Thanks to you, near and far, who help with and enjoy alongside.

The flowers in the garden know/just how they need to grow

Carissa leads the charge, and I'm camouflaged in green.

Patrick elicits a renaissance-y sound from the guitar as we

practice the traditional early music piece "The Middle."

Dreams really do come true: I was able to get through performing Lizzo’s “Juice” without just laughing at myself, and we had a super fun semi-secret party at an empty dorm.  The dancing got a little intense and we lost some of the beads from the shaker, but everyone got home in one piece.  It was a school night so that meant just hot chocolate for me( “eight hours bottle to throttle”), and it was about the most fun sober dancing I’ve ever had.

A massive snowstorm started a few days ago, trapping people here with short contracts from leaving, and providing ideal conditions for a post-brunch snowball fight.  Usually it’s so dry and cold you can’t pack the snow, but it’s a balmy 25F and we’ve got eight or so inches of beautiful cannon fodder.  There were no teams; occasional white-washings were perpetrated; random charges were rallied; and a BBC crew filmed and participated.

I have thus far evaded the second round of illness, which has morphed into a swift-striking and long-lasting strep-laryngitis.  Fingers crossed that my mix of voodoo and fresh ginger will keep me healthy and able to continue with xmas concert band, choir, and vocal harmonies with a banjo player friend.

We're All Friends, We're All Friends

Things friends do:

- drink coffee with you
- pet your hair
- physically block your view of people you don't like
- write you entertaining letters
- share the good cookies
- indulge each other's enthusiasm for 80085 texts
- knit together
- awkwardly dance in sympathy when the music is bad
- reveal the secrets behind card tricks
- find out if that guy is single
- lend their dresses
- watch Beautician and the Beast
- work out barbershop quartet harmonies for that Jimmy Eat World song
- take cool seal photos (see photo)
- trade books
- wait

photo credit: Brian Gershon

Lounge Singer

my favorite cargo sled (for loading pallets of stuff onto planes)

A chapter title I wish I had written, from The Career Woman's Cookbook,

in the NZ lounge of the historic Hillary Hut.

I'm afraid to jinx it, but I'm pretty excited about all the music happening.  My roomie has insider status at a building I've eyed for years but never been in: the Paint Barn doubles as a rehearsal space after business hours.  This week, I played piano and clarinet and guitar and cello (barely) and sang.  Yes, there is a nice new cello here, and I can scrape the bow across with some satisfying resonance at least half the time.  It was a fun discovery made possible by repeated power outages.  All is not well with our electrical supply, and we went through three of five back-up generators.  (Don't ask me why or how the generators failed mechanically; rumors abound of bolts sheering, fan blades expelled, and improbable gremlin destruction.)  Decades of delayed maintenance and power overdraw is finally catching up with the system, thankfully during summer while sunlight shines in the windows.  Still, it's a challenge to peer at mysterious food in the gloom of a de-powered galley, let alone cook it.  Oh yeah, and we desalinate our drinking water from the ocean, so no electricity means no water, either.

And so with limited lights, rationed water, and no intra- or internet, music folks wandered around until we found each other.  Joe and Patrick and I had the cello, a guitar, and a banjo, and I knew just where to go.  There's a small dorm on the far side of town, as yet uninhabited this season.  The lounge of the Mammoth Mountain Inn (I have no idea why it's called that) has large windows that look out to the ice shelf, two long couches, and decent acoustics.  It's the perfect place to pass around a bottle of wine, sing some love songs, and speculate about who we should eat first if the power completely stays off for good.

Sweater Song

Shuttle Jake unconsciously posing at emergency apple #1.

You can't actually see the amazing ice fog glitter,

but this picture ended up looking neat.

old film canisters from the NZ Hillary Hut

No, not the Weezer one -- my new favorite thing to sing is a playful and exquisitely longing song that employs a sweater as an improbably sexy metaphor ("I Wish I Was," by the Avett Brothers).  This year I finally brought an aux cable, so I can listen to my own music while I drive.  If there's no one to shuttle, I can repeat a song over and over and over, and in such fashion learn it, all during work hours (shhhh, don't tell).

Every year I give myself a talking-to about how I should really learn guitar so I can accompany myself, and skip over the ingratiating and bowing and scraping that I perform in order to wheedle people into playing music with me.  Luckily my Fuelie friend is obliging me for the time being, but really, I swear, I'll learn to strum and pick...this summer...or next season...sometime.

Unseasonably warm and sunny weather has followed me from Alaska to Antarctica.  Everything's melting, I hiked in a sweater, and sunblock is my constant companion.  The sea ice is quite thin this year, only having formed in late July.  Already large cracks extend from the rocky point just beyond town, and our days of exploring pressure ridges and skiing around the cape are numbered.  The seals seem to be thriving, though, and a slew of doe-eyed pups are adorably writhing around.  

Speaking of writhing on the ice shelf, I started doing push-ups and sit-ups on every drive to the airfield.  No, that's not me suffering a stroke behind my van; I'm just trying to be inconspicuous, in a bright red jacket, with a neon safety belt, in a broad, open, white plain bustling with heavy equipment and airplane mechanics.  I eeked out 20 push-ups in a row once, but the following set, two hours later, I could barely finish my usual 10.  I'll get there soon, though, and my sweater will be waiting when it get's too cold.

Stockholm's cold but I've been told/I was born to endure this kind of weather

abstract lenticular clouds atop Erebus

den + dresser

The window frame in my room is not quite true, and even mild winds whistle mournfully; the drafts stir my bed curtains.  I have what technically passes for a four-poster: the metal corners of the frame reach up a foot or so, and the sheets I tacked to the ceiling enclose my small sleep-cave.  

I elected to work the day shift first this year, which will hopefully grease the wheels for doing lots of music.  But I felt significant pangs as a crowd of good people departed for the night shift this weekend.  We'll always have Saturday night...

A set of drawers contain my minimal and tidy possessions, yet incongruously sprouts an increasingly unwieldy collection of hoarded luxuries and scavenged detritus.  There are notes on Post-Its on notes, a teetering pile of books and old magazines, a gnarled chunk of ginger root, wine glasses and colored pencils and maple syrup and balls of yarn of varied autumnal hues.  The raw materials of my temporary domesticity are close at hand, uncannily like props on a stage in their organic disorder.

Training is nearly complete, and soon I'll drive those regular runs out to the airfield, this time with an aux cord and my own music.  I'll still tune in to the Armed Forces Network radio broadcast of awful Top 40 for entertainment and to keep up with the kids these days, but not until after I've listened to First Aid Kit's "Emmylou" 147 times in a row.

High Five

I know it's not quite the right issue, but it *is* springtime here.

#readeverywhere

@ParisReview

Welcome to Season 5.  Somehow this time it feels I was only gone a month or so.  The familiar scenery, setting, sunlight, smell, the sourness of the yogurt: this place I know well, and even marking its changes solidifies and reaffirms for me its character.

We have a fun, diversely talented Shuttles crew this season, amongst whom I am the least-experienced professional driver.  But my knowledge of town and its arcane customs and jargon, and at times feudal interrelations, make me a sort of tribal elder.  Whippersnappers a decade younger than me, who have driven big rig semis across country, listen as I ride shotgun and describe where to park at the Tower of Power, how best to approach Sausage Point on a windy day, and the specific door at which to drop off NASA Roy at the Golf Ball.

It was a busy/not busy first week -- meeting new people, endless training sessions, hours of chit-chat while we wait for vehicles to revive from the near-death of wintering outside, and a barrage of activities and freshly effervescing enthusiasm.  I've already trained as a guide for the historic huts and ice pressure ridges, sung with jazz folks, consumed several pounds of cheese, and submitted my three-years-procrastinated literary journal fan mail pic.

Up close delivering some important stuff to the C-17.

Back Again!

Taylor's Mistake, NZ

sundae with frendz

Oct. 20

And we're...offfff...I think.  You really never know for sure.  Five days ago, with perfect weather on both ends, we giddily (and rather sleepily) bundled ourselves onto the C-17 and flew to Antarctica.  It's a loud, tedious plane ride featuring a mediocre sack lunch, but everyone's excited to get to the Ice.  Just 80 miles shy of McMurdo, already into our descent, a crew member came over the PA to tell us that the anti-icing fluid they deployed had caused the windshield to crack(!).  Not in a dire fashion -- blizzard winds were not screaming into the cockpit -- but to a degree that required us to turn around and fly the five hours back to New Zealand.  I'm now part of the boomerang club.

Aside from the long plane ride, I've been grateful to have a few extra days to bum around Christchurch, hike the cliff shores around Sumner, and enjoy perfect eggs benedict and Thai food and negronis.  Time spent in the real world with Ice people is invaluable: quotidien experiences like getting coffee and waiting at the bus stop build surprisingly strong ties.  The quality of time and conversation depth during the past few days will morph in the coming months.

Here I am again, leaning back in my jump-seat, cozy in my Carhartts and enormous insulated boots.  Now, after a sunny day to cure the epoxy on the new window, we're sitting on the runway, carry-on bags full of apples and avocados and booze, minds and hearts again fixed on that far, cold destination.

----

Oct. 22

We made it on that second attempt, and I'm happy to report that it is quite cold and appropriately Antarctica-y here.  This year's Shuttles crew seems like a good bunch, and I lucked out and got a great random roommate.  No one could ever fill your shoes, Will -- with midnight coffee, manic crafting, banana stashing, and indescribable character -- but my new roomie is nice and smart and doesn't snore.

Lake Span

Byron? Bryan? I don't remember your name, lake, but you're pretty.

A freighter beyond some old pilings at Whitefish Point.

The Antarctica => Alaska seasonal migration has embedded itself in my inner ear, or magnetic compass, or biological clock—whatever it is that innately compels our peregrinations, be they routine or otherwise.

Alaska was deeply into autumn as Sam and I wrapped up our travels.  Up by Denali even the lower mountains were dusted with snow, and I opted to sleep in the rental car rather than wake up in a frosted tent.  (Actually, it rained pretty hard, and poor Sam was rather damp.)  An evening at the charmingly down-at-heel Chena Hot Springs was pretty nice, though.

And now a couple weeks in Michigan somehow melt by.  I met my brand-spankin'-new-three-day-old niece!  My friend Jen brought me along for a north woods cabin weekend, in a spot incredibly rich in placenames and literary references ("by the shores of gitche gumee" and "rushing Tahquamenaw," on the "Big Two-Hearted River," near Paradise).  We spent a few days exploring Lake Superior beaches, cooking everything with bacon, and gossiping/psychoanalyzing by the wood stove fire. 

Back in TC, I've crossed off almost all the items on my to-do list (exchange lifetime guaranteed socks; try better earplugs; get fancy hiking backpack with hip-belt heat-molded to my waist; procure several pounds of dried cherries to buoy my spirits when the food gets rough at McMurdo).  Long-put-off projects like cleaning up old emails and figuring out how exactly to move music from my aging laptop to my ancient iPod have filled several afternoons.  (This is what I get for hating technology.  If we'd all just stuck with Walkmans I'd be fine.)

Northland

Sam studiously taking notes from her reading while I sip cocoa.

gem-like waters of lower Reed Lake

cuuuuuuute Mint Hut

another impossibly gorgeous glacial lake

After countless times packing and unpacking, evacuating and returning, I remained skeptical that the season was finally ended.  Because even after the final mopping, last breakfast, and my walking tour to bid adieu to favorite trees and flowers, there was just enough time to watch “Point Break” one more time.*  And then a bunch of us rode in a van together for a few hours, and a handful even stayed the night together in Anchorage.  If there’s a better way to ease a transition than Ethiopian food with a dear old friend (love you, Jams!), I don’t want to know it.  Also in the wildly helpful category: a fun hiking/travel buddy, and a decadent late night picnic spread in your cozy cabin.

Mountains and rivers and glaciers and clouds of fog like dragon’s breath have enveloped Sam and me in a chilly autumn embrace.  It sounds like a fairytale—go up Fishhook Road almost to the pass; follow the winding stream past gnarled willows and enormous mossy boulders tossed there as though by giants; try not to slip on the gooey muddy footholds climbing to the ridge; then, if you’ve been deemed worthy, the mists will clear and a squat red hut will materialize on the mountainside.  There you’ll find lakes of the bluest blue, smooth valleys of granite below jagged shale peaks, and, in spite of the crumbling and shifting and rushing waters filtering through the glacier’s terminus, a deep stillness.

And next, Denali.  A visit to my original Alaskan foray.

*Our staff lounge contains VHS copies of almost every Patrick Swayze movie.  “Point Break” played on repeat for the entire week of staff training in May, and was screened regularly throughout the season.

Tidying

Lots of big ol’ jellies washed up in Seward 

fall time

more fall time 

After a few days of limbo in smoky Seward, we three kitcheneers hatched a plan to see the Alaska state fair.  In addition to record-breaking squash and pet-able goats, we were determined to see preeminent jam band/white reggae artists extraordinaire Slightly Stoopid.  The trip took us north past Anchorage, where we delighted in Vietnamese food and I rejoined the segment of the population that owns hiking boots.  

There’s probably one of those long compound German nouns, a word to describe responding to chaotic and trying circumstances by making and eating decadent food.  Friends evacuated and scattered to the winds, and a small corps of us returned to the wildfire zone to close up camp.  Of course it’s only natural not to let good things go to waste and to put extra care into meals with a more intimate group, but there’s also some ineffable force that goads us to elaborately affirm our humanity in the face of an inevitable terminus.

It’s been easy to overlook the yellowing leaves and crispness in the air, but fall is indeed here.  It gets dark, and it gets dark at a normal-world time.  The merest drizzle of rain combines with spent foliage to saturate the air with the scent of decomposition.  “And I miss you most of all, my darling/when autumn leaves start to fall.”

Smokemageddon Update

the rising river under my cabin

Part I (8/21)

So many bugs, so much smoke, so much guest food to prevent going to waste.  The bugs were stirred up by a massive brush cutting and removal to clean things up in case the fire reaches our front door.  The smoke is, I believe, hovering between “hazardous” and “highly dangerous” levels.  I should probably be more concerned about this, but it smells like a permanent barbecue/campfire and dims the lights so that I get a solid afternoon nap.  There’s not as much work for us cooks because management wisely decided not to bring guests into the inferno.  But we just can’t stay out of the kitchen, making extra treats, ornate sauces, and, in my case, croissants.  I appreciate the orderliness and relative quiet of the kitchen (all the common spaces are full of underemployed staff).  Also, we all get to stay in the guest cabins to get out of the smoke.  Also also, the triennial melting of a glacial ice dam means the grounds are flooding up to four feet.  A raging river plus a wildfire!!!

Part II (8/28)

I was really getting into the 3-hour work days and long euchre game series when the fire got within two miles of camp.  Our managers coordinated a preemptive evacuation plan so that we could get the maximum number of vehicles and high-ticket items out in an organized fashion.  That time came Monday evening, and before I could quite wrap my head around it I was driving a friend’s car full of hastily thrown together possessions south to Seward.  I’m chagrined that, in the scramble, I only packed pre-sliced provolone and havarti; thankfully, a more collected coworker packed logs of goat cheese and a round of petit basque.

Aside from some emotional discomfort associated with abruptly leaving living quarters with your life shoved in a few bags, things have been pretty nice.  Sympathetic hotel managers have accommodated us and it feels like an awkwardly-executed but well-meant surprise weekend getaway.  Our lodge might burn to a crisp, but let’s eat Thai food and check out the aquarium!

Everything is touch and go but supposedly we head back tomorrow to close up shop and winterize camp.  In a weird and great season it just gets weirder and greater-er.

Where There’s Smoke

I should have taken this thirty minutes earlier, but it’s still pretty.

Bye hot Sam, I’ll miss pretend swing dancing with you.

There are so many distinct burning smells—right when nuts go a little too far in the oven; autumn leaf piles; the metallic tang of welding; a smoldering cigarette; a marshmallow that kamikazes from perfectly golden and gooey to a charred disaster.  From flying sparks spring raging tongues of flame.

The forest fire got worked up again.  There was a bit of smoke, the air took on that campfire scent, but we didn’t think much of it at first.  Summer is winding down and people are leaving already, so a round of salutatory fun has been initiated.  A group of us went out on the river one evening to drink a few beers, catcall a few bald eagles, pretend to be thrown around by the minimal rapids, and (lucky us!) coo at a baby brown bear.  This week also featured our all-staff backcountry camp out/ping pong tournament/fancy dress party.  Sure it was getting smokier, but we motored across sparkling Skilak Lake to revel for a night at our sister lodge.  I sported a purple floor-length satiny gown that was slit and ripped (not by me) to my upper thigh.  I watched my first full sunset of the summer, the pinks and purples intensified by the thickening haze.  Despite a week of crappy sleep and force-feeding myself handfuls of raw ginger to stave off a cold, I tapped into a current of energy and caroused until the wee smalls.

Far too soon, a knock came at my cabin door.  The wildfire that smoked us out all of July has reignited, jumped the river and highway, and highway was closed.  A van and car load of costumed, hungover, wallet-less people headed for the nearest town, where we...went to a brewery and chilled all afternoon to laugh over our fate.  I was one of the lucky few who had spare clothes, ID, and even camping gear as I’d planned to make a weekend of it.

We made it back this afternoon to an intense but as yet unscathed basecamp with friends bustling about in masks clearing brush, and eerie yellow-filtered light of smoke-choked sun.  Grasping for a sense of normalcy, I retreated to the kitchen.  My coworkers didn’t really need help but invited me to chop some veggies, and I decided to make the strawberry-rhubarb pie I’d been hemming and hawing over all summer.  If the garden goes up in flames tomorrow, I’d regret not having made it.

Notes and Rests

Young Chris Young blending hot dogs

overlooking Skilak Lake

On what feels like the 800th consecutive day of sunny, breezy, 75 degree weather, I decided it’s not a waste of a beautiful day to sleep in, eat a big breakfast, read until I fall asleep again, eat some potato chips and sunflower seeds, take another nap, and go to bed early.  I’d like say that I’m good at listening to my body, but it’s really just the natural result of multiple campfire evenings plus birthday plus pouring all my creative energy into a long night of karaoke.

Well, most of my creative energy.  A small portion was also invested in hot dog tots, inspired by my giddiness over pushing meat through the food processor.  It was a fun follow-up to Dorito butter, my impish attempt to have a little fun with our wealthy guests’ dining experience.

Oh, and I spent a while singing little patterns and sequences out on a fallen tree that reaches out to the middle of the river.  Leaves rustled like brushes on a snare, two eagles chirped accompaniment, and the rushing water suggested that Wordsworthian spontaneous overflow of emotion, for me in tones instead of words.  As the poet put it, “With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.”

August Fermentation

blubein’ and drinkin’

Portage Galcier, from the pass

I recently brought my bread back from a sorry state: it was stubbornly underproofed, dense and sad, sorely lacking the fungal joie de vivre necessary for an airy interior and crisp crust.  The sourdough starter knew before the rest of us that summer is waning.  It tried to tell me about the increasingly long and cool nights but the message took a while for me to decipher.  It’s sorted out now, and just in time to complement the panoply of cheese I’ll share on my birthday.

A late summer birthday allows for the perfect sort of reflection—there’s still a good deal of summer and sun and beach left, but you can sense the approach and change of autumn.  Without yet feeling pressed for time, we’re starting to prioritize unhiked trails and unswum lakes.  It’s still light out until late, but fleeting, as yellow leaves replace yellow beams.

A few nights ago, a group of us headed to a local spot flush with blueberries.  We strolled and picked and chatted, slowly accumulating little sacks of sugary jewels.  Smooshed up a bit with gin and mint and simple syrup, they made a sublime cocktail.  We had everything we needed.  Today, as we paddled a surprise free canoe on a backcountry lake, a friend said, “Life is good in Alaska.”

For some time I have felt home-less, that I neither want to nor could possibly make another home.  (A disheartening result of parting ways with the city, dwelling, and man you spent your entire adult life with.)  The only place that’s felt ok is an industrial, temporary, capricious, government-contractor-sciencey-masquerade in Antarctica, where by definition no one can actually live.  I’m not about to buy real estate in Alaska, but I’d consider a long-term rental.

Nice Kitchen Boys*

end of a damp damp trail

low tide island in Turnagain Arm

I’m, like, pretty okay at cooking.  I can reliably make a diverse array of dishes that taste good and range in appearance from not awful to actually appealing.  I also have a healthy sense of humility (bordering on devaluation) about my abilities.  Luckily, I have crossed paths with some thoughtful, diplomatic cooks who helped affirm and grow my skills.

A memorable kindness from my fancy restaurant days was my favorite sous chef overlooking that I called him by the wrong name half the time after he warmly greeted me at the start of each shift.  (In my defense, John and Paul, the charcuterie guy, looked alike, were both friendly, and my mnemonic device of “he’s a member of the Beatles” got me nowhere.)  Feeling he was genuinely glad to have me there somehow made the gougeres bake better.  Also at this restaurant, without being a bit patronizing, my favorite line cook taught me the proper and most efficient way to sweep the insanely busy and crowded service kitchen during dinner.  Resetting after each rush is a practical necessity as well as a mental form of cleaning house, to clear out the past and go on with what’s next.  Yet another good soul there told funny stories and helped me improve my atrophying knife skills while scoring, blanching, and peeling the 500 pounds of tomatoes we processed into petals.  He was able to draw me out from shy servility and I came up with a time-saving organizational scheme.

When I turned up in Antarctica with precious little line cooking experience, my trainer friend cooked all the breakfast eggs to order while I stood frozen in terror beside him at the giant griddle.  He invited me several times to “just jump on in whenever,” and remained chipper and patient while I neglected to do so for the entire three hours.  In fits and starts I wobbled through the next day, and he praised me as though I had done him a huge favor.  After a couple weeks I could run the whole show myself (and hungover).  I try to remember from this that ignorance and naïveté can just be temporary.

This summer I have the pleasure and occasional inner unworthy-squirminess of working with two cooks both incredibly talented and pathologically nonchalant about myriad challenges and mishaps.  They accept and manage my errors of judgment and execution without batting an eye, and collegially share suggestions and solutions.

This isn’t supposed to be all humble-aw-shucks.  What I want to get at is the good faith/optimism/encouragement that some people emit, like sun beams that we can turn and face like a flower seeking photons in order to unfurl.  Many thanks.

*All of these examples happen to be guys.  I’ve efinitely been graced by more than my fair share of kind and generous kitchen gals as well.  Especially dear Lisas.

Love’s Labour’s Lost

near our campsite

the high road to Seward

fireweed showing off

It feels kind of cliche, but I guess I’m going to write about some of my feelings in conjunction with Lost Lake.  Because sometimes the universe is trying to tell you something, and the universe is not always subtle.

As I grope along this odd path I think I’m on, through the physical and psychological wilderness, from time to time I’ll spot a nice sunny meadow in the distance.  My step quickens, my eyes lock onto that destination, and my muscles and willpower set to.

What is it like to reach Lost Lake?  It’s an idyllic respite hidden in the mountains—you’ve happened upon a spot “lost” from the modern world, from spoilation, from lazy and prying and jaded eyes.  One could disappear up into the snowy peaks surrounding it, or beneath its cool blue waters.  You could cast your memories and hopes, like so many skipping stones, turning them over in your hand before releasing them, irretrievably, into its depths.  Lost Lake conjures the idea of the long swim that makes up each life, crawling and pulling, breath after breath, mile after mile, day after day, ever tiring yet hesitant to reach that other shore.

Ahem.  So I hiked to Lost Lake with some lovely friends who made sure I didn’t get lost.  We camped on a sunny meadow, overlooking the lake.  We suffered scores of pestering flies and mosquitoes to make maybe the best ever macaroni and cheese, and then piled into one tent to joke and fart and laugh, and then nod off to the soothing narration of yours truly reading from a book of Alaskan natural history

Play It Cool

At first we thought Jerome was messing with us so we would speed up, 

but there really was a baby goat!

In other news, the dirt track in Kenai is amaaaaazing fun.

Now this is more like it—cool and rainy.  I’ve pulled a fleece on over my sweatshirt here in the tent.  Layer upon layer of cozy protection is what I want, twelve months of the year.

My parents are great parents, don’t misconstrue the following anecdote.  We usually kept the thermostat at a cool 68 degrees in winter, which lasts five months in northern Michigan.  My room was at the northwest corner of the house (read: the coldest part), and by the time the furnace air reached my room it was lukewarm at best.  My complaints of cold toes were many times met with the rejoinder, “Well of course, you’re only wearing one pair of socks!”  

When December rolled around during college in New York City, I’d wear two sweaters, like you do.  Actually, it turns out, like no one does; you could practically hear the record scratch as people openly gaped while I peeled off coat, then sweater, then sweater in a steamy bar.

When Matt and I bought our house, exciting new avenues of frugality opened up.  Leaving it at 45 degrees was just a hair too low to keep the lesser bathroom pipes from freezing, unfortunately.  It also meant two sweatshirts and thermals before diving under the ice-cold bedding, carefully tucking the down comforter all around without even a hole for your nose.  The olive oil solidified in the kitchen cabinet, and since it was silly to heat the whole water tank just for the weekend, we’d boil some on the stove to wash dishes.

This is not to say that I like being cold.  Rather, I understand and appreciate it, and can work with it.  Wear a third jacket; eat some chocolate; run around; breath in deep and think about its quieting effect.

Yesterday I hiked up Mt. Cecil with friends, a classic pointy peak just across the street, a familiar feature we look upon every day.  There are still some patches of snow near the top.  I sweat buckets up the steep path but above the treeline we had a bit of rain accompanied by gusting winds blowing ethereal clouds of fog.  On the jagged shale summit perched a family of mountain goats, the baby eagerly hopping and galloping about.  We noticed hunks of shed fur clinging to sharp-edged rocks, whether trading their coats for lighter or heavier ones, we weren’t sure.  The three of us huddled above, double-coated and hooded, and the goats clambered down a bit to huddle below.

Spruce Moose

hazy Martian sunset

skies clearing a bit at Lost Lake

You know how delicious moose tracks ice cream is?  It’s so satisfying mining those surprise veins of fudge, crunching on the ‘lil peanut butter cups, the salty-sweet combo melting around the edges as you devour bowl fulls.  Actual moose tracks in the mud are pretty neat, too, shockingly large dinosaur-deer hooves, prints that pique the imagination.  Witnessing their making, however, is rather alarming: before your very eyes, 10,000 pounds* of sinewy muscle, deployed with the agility and speed more commonly associated with pumas or sharks, press those angled toes into the ground.  (*Okay, more like 1,000 pounds.)  There is a particular fellow (gentleman moose?) (bulls are extra intimidating) who frequents the bog alongside our property.  There is a gravel path next to the highway that we use to travel between base camp and additional tent city housing.  Mr. Antlers greatly appreciates the ease of movement afforded by this path, the better to nibble on grasses.  I hadn’t seen him for some weeks when, about midnight, a companion and I chanced upon him in the dusky gloom.  Without meaning to be rude, he made it clear that he wished to occupy the path undisturbed, and we were only too eager to oblige.  The distance across the highway, however, proved inadequate to soothe his wary distemper, and so we prudently retreated to formulate an alternative campaign.  Each passing vehicle caused Mr. Antlers to nervously toss his head, like a horse but with a giant bone-chandelier-cudgel.  There was no choice but to appeal to our species’ superior technology.  I flashed my brightest smile and hailed the next car, and explained our predicament to the two confused fisherman within.  That fifty yards was short ride, but just as life-affirming a hitch as any I’ve ever landed.

Mr. Antlers (or an associate, perhaps) still felt a lot of consternation that evening, and trumpeted or roared or moo-ed or whatever, back and forth with a cohort, in the pre-dawn.  It was an arresting sound, reverberating through the night air, that animal bellow of simultaneous aggression and defensiveness.

I could tell you about our 4th of July In-Depends-Dance party wherein we donned adult diapers and drank ham-aritas in a clearing in the woods, but it’s really fun writing about moose encounters.  The other day I walked several miles to the big bridge and back, and just as I approached said bog, I heard strident splashes.  I hustled to a break in the trees and—quick!—peered down the slope to spy Mr. Antlers clomping around his backyard pool, squelching his hooves in the muck and snacking aimlessly before meandering back behind the spruces.  None of the cat-calling SUV idiots or doughy RV tourists had any idea what a kingly creature they motored by.

Spittin’

We had to stop in Soldotna to ride this homemade Alaskan animal carousel.

Walkin’ and spittin’

Some super solid bread, for sure

We’ve been here almost two months and the tighknit nature of our community is starting to grate on some people.  You wait in line with a plate for dinner; you hope no one “borrows” your personal shampoo in the showers; you find yourself socially exhausted because there’s always a friendly face around — ten of them in fact, asking how your day was but they already know because they heard about the bear you saw or the fish you caught from someone else already.  Yes, there are actual millions of acres of forest and mountains to retreat into, but our tents are six feet apart and no one can hide who they’re sleeping with.  And we’re all pretty supportive and team-oriented, but of course there are spheres of influence and power, favor to bestow and future jobs to angle for.  

You would never think it, but some of the best possible preparation for remote seasonal work is a) living in a densely-populated urban center, and b) the behind-the-scenes ego, gossip, and plundering at a church.  When people here get exasperated about the lack of personal space I think fondly/glad-it’s-over of the 12’ X 15’ office Matt and I illegally lived in, toting drinking water up two flights of stairs, showering at the gym, and wedging myself in and out of subway cars every stop for other people to enter and exit because it was packed so full.  And while it’s regrettable that seasonal jobs end up employing people who embellished their resume or aren’t the brightest bulbs, I’ll take them any day over a spiritually bankrupt, money-grubbing, selfish, sexist, piece of shit liar of a minister and boss.  (According to Dante, your special place in hell is a ditch full of vengeful reptiles whose ceaseless biting disfigures you and causes you to repeatedly spontaneously combust, Greg.)

Even the dense forest fire smoke is like so much city bus exhaust.  I’m glad neither really bother me, but I’m slightly concerned by my high tolerance.  Ok, ok, I digress.  All of this adds up to four of us hightailing it to Homer for a day and night.  Even allowing for Alaska’s excessive beauty, Homer hit a home run (one might say, a homer).  Mountains and glaciers meeting the sea in a quaint-sized town with a three-mile spit of sand to walk out on and enjoy gelato!  And an idyllic farm-campground just far enough out in the country, with charming paths through wildflowers and seashell-driftwood cabins!  Not to mention the first haze-free sky we’d seen in three weeks.  Alright, I do relish my own stretch of beach with sun-sparkled waves, fresh salt breeze, and nature’s good news unfiltered through words yet communicated crystal clear.

The Sunlight Clasps the Earth

Near the top of Hope Point trail with lovely humans (not pictured)

Best evening lit rose ever

There is a lot of light emanating from the sun.  It barely dips below the tree-limb horizon, so sometimes we forget when to go to bed.  And it is relentlessly sunny — the forest fires burn on, the moss is dusty and the woods bare of mushrooms, and my hair is almost blond.

Peak zenith should be celebrated.  About thirty of us trooped singlefile alongside the highway to a bridge over a creek to enact the rites of Troll-stice.  We puzzled ye riddles three; we guzzled libations and feasted on fat buttery things; we ornamented each other with glitter to symbolize the sun’s glinting rays; and at midnight we submerged our limbs in the creek to commemorate the cyclical passage of seasons and time and meaningful stuff.

The dandelions know how to make the most of their time, stretching their stalks a foot high, proudly above the feathery horsetail, to nod their at first gloriously golden and now (so swiftly!) wizened gray heads.  The salmon, too, make haste through these elastic days and nights of light.  Furiously swimming, leaping improbably high and far out of the water, their instinct drives them to their impossibly Sisyphian task to climb treacherous rocky falls.  Not infrequently, the foaming white water churns up a ragged orange-pink meat chunk, one of their fellows filleted by the pounding river.

It’s interesting that the salmon exhaust their own lives to spawn subsequent salmon.  Not only their upstream exertion but also the nutrients from their carcasses sustain their hatchlings and the biome of the river.  The process is simultaneously productive and destructive.  I sang a song a few months ago about the inevitable changing of seasons (“Gatekeeper,” by Feist).  The buildup (preceding the breakdown) goes: 

June, July, and August said,

“It’s probably hard to plan ahead.”

June, July, and August said,

“It’s better to bask in each other.”